There have been sisters who have been All-Americans, and there have been sisters who have set records.

What makes Gabby and Livy Rosenzweig special is that the sisters did both in the same season at different Division I schools last spring.

Gabby finished her sophomore year at No. 14 Penn with a school record-tying 85 points. Livy was the Patriot League Rookie of the Year after ending her freshman year at No. 11 Loyola with a school-record 102 points, the first player, male or female, at Loyola to break the century mark. Both were named third-team All-Americans.

“I knew they’d be forceful, but it’s been incredible,” said Jaime Pryschlak, who coached both at Somers (N.Y.) High. “I said to their parents, ‘Can you believe this is happening?’”

The Rosenzweigs are better known after becoming just the third set of sisters in the last 20 seasons to earn All-American honors in the same season while playing for different Division I programs. Crista Samaras (Princeton) and Stephy Samaras (Virginia) were the first in 1999, and Allison Chambers (Georgetown) and Emily Chambers (Penn State) did so in 2005.

“I still am kind of in shock about everything,” Gabby said. “It’s literally a dream.”

Gabby is the little engine that could while Livy is the can’t-miss prospect who didn’t. They each play attack effectively for their respective schools with their own style. Gabby is 18 months older, a fierce competitor who plays in a blur. Livy is younger, but three inches taller and built powerfully with a plan to use it.

“We play the exact same position,” Livy said. “She dodges from the crease also, but we have a really different style of playing. She’s really quick and tiny and can zip around people. I’m more using my body, I can feel if a defender is leaning toward one side and I really use my body when I’m dodging. She’s the quick, shifty player. It’s funny how different we are but we’re in the same position.”

“I would say we’re both doing similar stuff for our teams," explained Gabby. "We’re just getting there in very different ways.”

The close-knit sisters did not play the same position in high school and did not expect to play the same position in college, but over the years, both have made it clear that they would play anywhere to help their team win. In high school, that meant opposite ends of the field, but having them on the field has made a huge difference to their teams.

“You feel their presence and you miss their presence when they’re not there,” Pryschlak said. “It’s not like you’d ever want one or the other. When we lost Gabby for Livy’s senior year, it was tough. They had been playing together so long.”

Gabby played defense and midfield at Somers. It limited her scoring so much so that Livy scored her 200th career goal before Gabby recorded her 100th. When Gabby graduated, Livy asked to move to midfield, even though she loathes the running part of the Loyola offseason workout packet.

“That’s why people want them to succeed,” Pryschlak said. “They do it for the greater good. They’re giving themselves the name, but they’re not selfishly doing it. Their hard work is paying off."

Gabby’s work ethic is credited for her success. She wasn’t on everyone’s recruiting radar like Livy, though both grew up playing youth lacrosse together for their father, Niall, who played lacrosse and football as Ithaca.

“Having me at defense made more sense because I was more like an athlete-kid on the field,” Gabby said of her high school experience. “After I committed and started working more on lacrosse, I think my skills started coming into place.”

Gabby was a little behind after gearing up to play basketball in college, up until she changed her focus to lacrosse in high school. But practicing basketball every day with her mother, Margaret, who played basketball at Fordham, her skills materialized on the lacrosse field.

“I think she learned so much from working at it, and also the quickness,” said Penn head coach Karin Corbett. “The change of direction you need in basketball, she has that. She can change directions and stop on a dime. She’s very difficult to defend in a one-on-one situation.”

Gabby, an all-state basketball selection as a Somers senior, switched her focus again from a more defensive role in high school to quarterbacking the Penn lacrosse offense in her first college year. She was recruited to play midfield, but turned her attention to the attack and her offensive stickwork.

“I was so determined to make sure I was playing midfield, I practiced my shooting and dodging and watched Kayla Treanor videos,” Gabby said.

Penn moved her that fall after she did play some midfield.

“We had graduated Nina [Corcoran] on attack and we needed someone who could play behind the net,” Corbett said. “We had no one. We just needed somebody who we thought would impact our attack side right away. We were a little thin there. She attacked from behind the net in the fall. We realized how quick she is and how hard she is to defend. She had confidence back there.”

Gabby was surrounded by solid, experienced players as a freshman and finished with 26 goals and 16 assists for third on the team in scoring with 42 points. She returned for her second season more comfortable and confident after leading a young offensive group all fall. She more than doubled her point total and tied her predecessor Corcoran for the school single-season record 85 points on 49 goals and an Ivy League-leading 36 assists.

“The reason I did so well on attack was not just that I was determined, but that my coaches were so amazing and taught me so much and believed in me and the player they saw in me,” Gabby said. “Our offense shared the ball a lot, we worked well together and I had an awesome team behind me.”

Few had foreseen Gabby’s level of success coming on attack except those that knew her best. Even Gabby admits that her success would be more surprising than her sister’s.

“She’s always been that workhorse type of midfielder that does everything on the field,” Livy said. “She obviously had to take on a different role when she got to Penn and she’s worked so hard and adapted so well to her role and position. Yes, it’s surprising, but it doesn’t surprise me because of her work ethic and commitment to what she has to do to win for Penn.”

Livy was more of a sure thing. Taller and more physical than many players, she had a selection of shots and the knowledge of how to use them and could find others if she wasn’t open. She’d grown up dominating, despite playing a year up to be with Gabby.

“Her ability to command an offense surprised me,” said Loyola head coach Jen Adams. “Obviously coming in, you can have a successful freshman year scoring goals or getting assists, but her ability to help arrange an offense and have the maturity to see how a play unfolds and make good decisions was something that did surprise me. It takes a rare kind of player to do that off the bat.”

No freshman in Loyola history had ever matched Livy’s season. She broke the freshman school records for points (102), assists (47) and draws (89). Her scoring stats almost overshadowed her importance in other areas.

“Adding a player that multi-dimensional, it’s rare to find a player of her caliber being able to score goals and get assists,” Adams said. “But with Livy, if I’m drafting her for a team, two of the biggest keys I’m going to draft her for are her ability to ride and get you the ball back when you need it and her ability to come up with balls off the draw when you need them, whether she’s taking the draw or she’s on the circle. Her strengths, you can keep going down the page, and that’s what really sets her apart from other people.”

The two never seriously considered playing at the same college. Gabby was on an Ivy League track early; Livy was open to other options.

“It would be funny to see how it would have turned out if we went to the same school, or if I would have even played, or she would have even played,” Livy said. “I don’t think that we would be fighting for the same position. I think it’d be really different than it is now.”

Separated for the first time in lacrosse, they have blossomed.

“Livy made a bunch of lists and was on a bunch of stuff going into school and she deserved all of that,” Gabby said. “I’ve never had any of that, so I wanted to make a name and style of play for myself. There wasn’t a lot of pressure.”

Though their styles are different, both are equally vital to their top-15 teams. They share attack roles after their teams found how to utilize their gifts.

“We tried to bring her up top too,” Corbett said of Gabby. “She kind of did stay behind the goal her freshman year because we needed her to be more of a feeder and a challenger. She can dodge from anywhere. She can go left; she can go right. She’s one of the best shooters on the team. She reps more than any kid I’ve coached. She’s going to put the time in, and you love that as a coach. We said, you have to go up top now, and you can dodge from up top now. She had a lot of opportunities to dodge that way which is more difficult to guard.”

Livy’s addition to Loyola made their attack more dangerous. Her impact was acknowledged as one of only four freshmen to be All-American last year.

“We had a crease player in Hannah Powers who was pretty good back there, and as they started circulating around together, we started to see Hannah find success at the top and Livy find success at the crease,” Adams said. “As we migrated into the spring, we figured being able to free them up to both play multi-dimensional sides of the field and the top of the 8 and coming from the back side of X, we figured we had a pretty special tandem going back there and it was. It worked out really nicely for us.

“Hannah is in her senior year, so they have one more year together. Livy hasn’t pigeon-holed herself. There were games if she was marked up on and was struggling to find her way at the crease, she’d pull herself up to the top and find a way to get it done from up there. I think being able to build that chemistry and find other players she can work in with is her biggest strength.”

In high school, they had each other in practice. Pryschlak says it was never nasty between the sisters. They were intense, but instructional with each other. If one got the better of the other, she told the other how and suggested how to improve.

“They always wanted to push each other to make each other better,” Pryschlak said. “That’s why they would play against each other. They would get the best out of each other.”

They do the same now from afar, though they also help each other when together. When Gabby gets home from her summer internship, on some days she joins Livy to make her younger sister’s dreaded runs go faster. The two have always felt the support of each other and their family.

“It’s really awesome and I’m very proud of both my sister and I,” Livy said. “We owe all our credit to our parents. They were both amazing collegiate athletes as well. We owe it all to them. They did it all for us. Recruiting, they helped us through that. They provided us with any club or anything we needed to get better. We owe them all the credit. It’s awesome that we get to represent their name in our schools and the All-American [honors].”

After sharing incredible seasons, the Rosenzweigs are coming back with greater expectations and also studying how they can handle increased attention expected from opponents. Expanding their games means adopting some of each other’s strengths.

“Since we are so different, I think maybe I can try what she does,” Livy said. “She dodges so much further away from her defender than I do. She dodges before there is any contact. Usually for me, when they make contact, that’s what I base my dodge off of. I definitely try to look at what she does before she makes contact with a defender and how she gets around them.”

“She tends to go over the top a lot and power through whereas I come in quicker using a lot of little moves," Gabby said. "I’m trying to grow in her side of the game in getting over the top and she’s trying to grow getting underneath. I’ve been working on that this summer. Maybe we’ll start to play a little more similarly.”

Both are hoping to expand their roles on their teams.

“The biggest thing I’m working on this summer are, one, being less predictable on the field, and being able to have a lot more threats,” Gabby said. “When it’s working, it’s working, and when it’s not, it’s not. So I need to have more options.

“The second thing is being a leader. I think everyone can improve on being a leader, and no one is a perfect leader. I think I improved on that between freshman and sophomore years, but there’s another leap I can take on being vocal and being a leader and setting an example on the field in terms of making good decisions. That’s playing and acting like a leader. The third thing is making better decisions.”

Livy, too, wants to be more of a leader this year for her Loyola team while she develops further after being through a complete college season.

“Personally, the thing I need to work on this year is I should take more of a vocal role on the offense,” Livy said. “When you’re a freshman, you don’t exactly know where your place is and you don’t want to overstep any boundaries. I think that would be good for me to practice for this year, especially in the fall. Also my left hand, I need to work on dodging and making sure that I can roll back lefty and also continue to better my right-handed stick skills. Definitely lefty and dodging lefty.”

More than anything, they each want to take their teams farther this year. Penn and Loyola lost on the same day in the second round of the NCAA tournament to end the 2018 season. Their college teams haven’t met each other since May 13, 2012, when Loyola beat Penn, 10-9, in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

“We’re scrimmaging them during the fall,” Gabby said. “I’m really excited for that.”

The sisters will face each other for the first time as part of Loyola’s play day Oct. 14.

“It is just a scrimmage,” Livy said. “Our parents don’t have to console anyone after a loss. It’ll be fun. My coach is saying I might have to take a few reps on middie so I can mark up against her just for fun. I’m excited for that.”