West Chester looks to make a run in the NCAA Division II women’s lacrosse tournament

Ginny Martino has been here before. For the third year in a row, the West Chester women’s lacrosse coach has led her team to an undefeated regular season. However, the last two years have ended with losses in the postseason.

In 2023, the Rams’ final game was in the NCAA Division II championship, when they fell to Pace University, 19-9. For many of the seniors, who were then sophomores, the “devastating” loss has served as their motivation to get back to the Final Four.

And as the No. 1 seeds, the Rams have the chance to do so. First, host West Chester will need to handle No. 2-seeded Slippery Rock in the NCAA quarterfinals Saturday at 3 p.m.

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“I think this is one of the closest-knit teams we’ve had since I’ve been here,” said senior midfielder Keri Barnett, an Archbishop Carroll graduate. “I think people were surprised because it’s a super young team. My sophomore year, we had a ton of big names, like Lindsay [Monigle] and Hannah [Stanislawczyk]. This year we didn’t really have those big names.”

The 19-0 Rams don’t need big names to be successful. Under Martino, in her 27th season with the program, the Rams have won 16 PSAC titles. And for the last seven years — not including the canceled 2020 season because of COVID-19 — West Chester has made an NCAA Tournament appearance. Martino also has won two national titles, in 2002 and 2008.

But a lot has changed since then. Teams are getting tougher, some programs have more money and resources, and the bracket has since expanded to allow more schools to qualify.

“I have no idea how we compete with these other programs, because we’re playing on pennies compared to other schools,” Martino said. “We do a lot of fundraising and we are fortunate enough to be able to bring in young athletes that believe in us and want to be part of the program. We’re very lucky in that sense, where we don’t have to throw a lot of dollars at them.”

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Martino may give her players the credit for the program’s overall success, but the coach’s continuity and culture have driven it. Consistency is not found often in Division II athletics, but during Martino’s tenure, alongside assistant coach Sue Burmester, an alumnus who rejoined the program in 2004, West Chester women’s lacrosse team has built a name for itself and become a destination program.

“We rarely have a kid transfer out of our program,” Martino said. “I can’t even remember the last time we had a kid transfer to other schools. That just doesn’t happen at West Chester. Kids come and they stay, and we’re thankful for that.”

The program has an old-school, family touch to it. Barnett has been attending lacrosse games at West Chester since she was a kid. Her sister, Sami, played on the team from 2016 to 2019, and Keri wanted to follow in her footsteps.

After starting in every game in her first two seasons, Barnett broke her hand in the season opener last year and needed surgery. She was sidelined for the remainder of the year. It was difficult, mentally and physically, to recover from. But it made this year’s comeback even better.

Barnett set the single-season record (111) for goals in West Chester and PSAC history. As of now, she ranks second all-time in points (142) and third all-time in caused turnovers (56) in a single season with the Rams.

“I used to play super uptight my freshman and sophomore year,” Barnett said. “I didn’t want to make a mistake, I didn’t want to really try new things or go out of my comfort zone. But going back to my injury, I was so excited to be back on the field, so I started to laugh off the mistakes, because it’s OK. The core of it all is just the excitement to be back and going for it all.”

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Barnett will graduate this year, but she plans to return next season to use her final year of eligibility after redshirting her junior season. The midfielder, however, has the mindset that right now is it, and she wants to win it all.

“This is my last year with the girls I’ve spent my entire four years with,” she said. “It just means so much because we’ve been through so much together.”

The Rams have a saying: “For me, for you, for we.” The conversations this week have been about playing for one another. Their win against Slippery Rock in the PSAC championship wasn’t easy, but Martino called the 17-11 victory a team effort, with younger players — like sophomore goalie Hannah Cornelius, a Shawnee grad, who had eight saves — stepping up when the veterans could not.

“We’re playing every game like it‘s our last,” said senior defender Kendall DiCamillo, a graduate of Garnet Valley. “We have a lot in store for us if we just stay together, and I think we can get the job done.”