Lacrosse has been part of Emily Ackerman’s life since she was in fifth grade.
The 2022 Rockbridge County High School graduate has moved on to the professional world, but she’ll take the lessons she learned from the sport with her.
Ackerman, 22, graduated from York College of Pennsylvania in May with a nursing degree, after playing four years of lacrosse for the Division III school. Prior to college, she played for the Wildcats, earning all-region honors her junior and senior years. She would’ve played all four years, but the 2020 season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a phone interview last Friday, Ackerman looked back on her lacrosse career and reflected on how it impacted her.
She was a basketball player as a young girl and was coached by Susan Nye, who has been the RC girls lacrosse head coach for the last eight years. Nye, who was also coaching the LexLax Lightning youth lacrosse club, encouraged Ackerman to try lacrosse. Ackerman said the transition from basketball to lacrosse was easy “because it is very similar. I was surrounded by all my friends. That was one of the best enjoyments of it. I love Susan, so that was a big part of it.”
When she started lacrosse, she tried playing as a defender, and the position grew on her. “I absolutely loved it,” she said. “I had no interest in trying any other position.”
Ackerman continued playing lacrosse while at Lylburn Downing Middle School. When Ackerman was in eighth grade in the spring of 2018, Nye was the head junior varsity girls lacrosse coach at RC, and Ackerman continued to play for her.
Breakthrough As Junior After Nye became the head coach of RC’s varsity girls lacrosse team in 2019, Ackerman joined the team and became a starting defender as a freshman. One of Ackerman’s classmates and teammates was Nye’s daughter, Kendall, who went on to play Division I lacrosse at Liberty University in Lynchburg, graduating in May. The Wildcats went 8-6 Ackerman’s freshman year, but they would only become more successful as Ackerman’s high school career progressed.
Ackerman played volleyball as a freshman, but otherwise, she focused her high school athletic career on lacrosse.
After the COVID-19 year, Ackerman had a breakthrough year on the lacrosse field as a junior in 2021, when she was named to the all-region first team. In a condensed season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wildcats went 11-1 and won the Region 4D championship, their first regional title in 20 years. The season ended with a 17-7 loss at Western Albemarle in the Class 4 state semifinals.
As a senior in 2022, Ackerman was a captain and stepped up in her leadership role. “She was a quiet leader and led by example,” said Susan Nye. “She had a tremendous work ethic and gave her all, whether it was in practice or in games.”
Ackerman was named to the all-region second team as a senior and helped the Wildcats win another Region 4D title and go 16-2, falling in the state semifinals to Western Albemarle in a 12-11 thriller. Since Ackerman graduated, the Wildcats have won four more Region 4D titles, but their season has ended all four times in losses to Western Albemarle, which has won the last four titles.
For her high school career, Ackerman collected approximately 40 ground balls and logged 35 caused turnovers while contributing four goals and one assist.
On coaching Ackerman in youth and high school lacrosse, Nye said, “I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to coach such an amazing young woman.”
Discovering York
Ackerman originally committed to Shenandoah University in Winchester, but she changed her decision to York College while she was a high school senior. She had found out about York through her father, Paul, discovering it had a great reputation in lacrosse and a strong nursing school. Ackerman contacted York head coach Jen Muston, and Muston checked out Ackerman’s lacrosse credentials. It wasn’t long before Ackerman had a scholarship offer to go to York.
At York, Ackerman was part of a winning team throughout her college career. This past spring, the Spartans won their fifth consecutive Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) title, going 16-5 overall and 6-1 in the MAC. They advanced to the third round of the NCAA Division III tournament, falling at Salisbury University 10-5. Early in the season, York played host to Old Dominion Athletic Conference champion Washington and Lee University and came up short in a 13-12 overtime thriller.
IN A game against the University of Scranton, Ackerman holds onto the ball while closely guarded. York earned a 12-9 road win over Scranton in late February. (Ronnie Coffey photo)
AT NEAR RIGHT, A Scranton player scoops as the ball York’s Emily Ackerman hustles to guard her. (Ronnie Coffey photo)AT FAR RIGHT, Salisbury’s Miranda Mears looks for an open teammate while Ackerman plays defense. York’s season and Ackerman’s college career ended with a 10-5 loss at Salisbury University in the third round of the NCAA Division III tournament in May. (Salisbury University Athletics photo)
Ackerman, a 5-foot-3-inch defender who wore No. 24 at York, was a regular contributor throughout her career. She said playing at the college level was “a lot different” than high school.
“Jumping into college level, that was hard, just for that adjustment,” said Ackerman. “Being a freshman, experiencing winning the conference, that just showed the team dynamic. I had this intense, happy feeling.”
Ackerman made great friends on the lacrosse team and lived with three of her teammates while she was a student.
She said she learned a lot from Muston, as she had from Nye. “She really pushed us to make the best of our abilities,” said Ackerman of her college coach. “She knew how to mesh us all together and make us work as well as she could. We did a lot of team bonding. She was the base and the fundamentals of the team.”
Muston, who is about to start her 20th year as York’s head women’s lacrosse coach, said that as a player Ackerman “was extremely hardworking, very diligent about her process of getting better, improving, taking every single rep at practice seriously and really focusing and mentally being there every day. It’s kind of amazing, really. You don’t have a lot of players like that.”
The York coach added that Ackerman did a great job of stepping into a leadership role as a senior after York graduated a lot of defenders the year before. “Emily was always a leader in her own way in how she did everything,” said Muston. “Everything she does, she does well. In school, she worked really hard. Her grades were great. The players liked being around her. We loved coaching her. She was just awesome and really great for us. She improved a ton over the four years.”
Muston added that Ackerman was “a quiet leader, a stealth leader.” As a person, Muston said Ackerman “is great to be around. She’s super trusted. Behaviorally, there was never an issue. She did anything for the team. She never got in trouble, and I never had to worry about her, even when she was a freshman.”
Entering The Working World
After graduating from York in May, Ackerman returned to Rockbridge County. She’s been working with children in the after-school program at Woods Creek Montessori, where her mother, Rhonda, teaches toddlers. Paul is a civil engineer for the city of Lexington, though both parents found jobs in York while Ackerman was in college.
Ackerman is an active registered nurse and a U.S. Navy nurse candidate. In October, she’ll move to Rhode Island to train to work at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
She has two older brothers. Jake, 30, is a civil engineer working on a Navy base in Italy, while Luke, 26, is the sports information director at Southern Virginia University.
In addition to her immediate family, Ackerman has gotten a lot of support from her extended family. Her grandparents attended a lot of her games over the years, with her grandfather Ronnie Coffey often taking photos for the family and for The News-Gazette.
“I’m very blessed to have them as my support,” said Ackerman of her family.
As for lacrosse, Ackerman has coached some youth lacrosse with Susan Nye. She might look at playing in some adult leagues after her body recovers from college lacrosse and if her busy schedule allows it.
Whether or not she plays or coaches, Ackerman plans to continue to follow the progress of the Wildcats and York. “I love to keep track of my teams,” she said.
