Late Wednesday afternoon, the Penn State field hockey team boarded a chartered airplane at University Park Airport, headed north to Hartford and then went on to Storrs, Connecticut.
The final destination? The NCAA Final Four.
On Friday, the sixth-ranked and co-Big Ten champs Nittany Lions will play No. 1 ranked and undefeated North Carolina in the semifinals of the NCAA tournament. A win there and PSU will face the winner of the other semifinals match, between No. 2 Northwestern and No. 3 Maryland.
Three Big Ten schools in the Final Four? Huh. And you thought the Big Ten’s Football East division was tough.
(You have to like Penn State’s chances if it advances to the title game on Sunday — in the regular season, it trounced Maryland 5-1 and lost 5-4 in overtime at Northwestern.)
“We compete in the most competitive conference in the country,” Penn State head coach Char Morett-Curtiss said on Tuesday. “I think it just speaks volumes to the three teams that are going to be in Storrs this weekend for the national championship.”
Though Penn Stade has been to the Final Four five previous times under the direction of Morett-Curtiss — OK, from here on out let’s just call her Char, as we do for other such mononymous celebs — in many ways, 2022 has already been one of the most memorable seasons in an iconic career.
And that is saying something, since she’s in her 36th season at Penn State, with 541 victories, seven Big Ten coach of the year honors, 30 NCAA appearances and now six trips to the Final Four, having lost in the finals in 2002 and 2007.
You can say the 2022 season really kicked off over coffee in Boston on the second Friday of May, when Char was one of the first Penn State coaches to meet one-on-one with Penn State’s athletic-director-in-waiting, Patrick Kraft. The two talked non-stop for two hours that day. And they could have gone longer as Char quickly discovered that Kraft was her high-octane energy equal. The meeting gave the veteran coach some extra adrenaline heading into the summer.
Char has always had a special relationship with her big bosses at Penn State. In many ways and many times her biggest supporter was Joe Paterno. Those relationships include the recently-retired Sandy Barbour, who has deep field hockey roots. Barbour was a strong advocate of Char’s program, and was often along the sidelines during games.
“I go back to when Penn State first gave scholarships to women in 1975, with people like Jim Tarman. I was a part of that incoming class,” said Char, an All-American and Olympic medalist. “They really had a vision for women’s sports to be successful here at Penn State. Tim Curley did the same thing. You know, we talked about the stadium with Tim 12 years ago, and I think Sandy came in the same way, looking to support the Olympic sports teams. Pat has been really vocal and aggressive in that pursuit.”
About that stadium: In the fall, Penn State broke ground on a new hockey field stadium, with a big chunk of the eight-figure price tag covered by donations personally raised by the head coach herself, who spent years and plenty of shoe leather getting it done. She’s a role model to players and coaches alike in so many ways.
Hers is a loyal fan base: Even without bleachers, torn down to start the construction, in 2022 Penn State led the nation in home game attendance.
NATIONAL CALIBER
Penn State has all the right credentials heading into the national semifinals. They are 17-3, with a stretch this past season when they won an eye-popping 14 of 15 games. They won a share of the regular season conference championship in the sport’s toughest college conference. They can boast of the Big Ten player of the year in Sophia Gladieux and the Big Ten coach of the year. They have four first-team All-Big Ten players, in Gladieux, Mackenzie Allessie, Elena Vos and goalie Brie Barraco.
Barraco has been the big cheese in the net for Penn State in 2022, giving up just 21 goals in 20 games, and only six goals in Penn State’s last 10 games (not a typo). She’s the epitome of the student-athlete, too. She is headed to grad school next year, followed by med school, to become a sports physician. (Her backup, Lauren Delgado, is a biochem and molecular biology major, who is also med school-bound after her own stint getting her own masters.)
The Goalie-to-Grad School is not an unusual scenario for Penn State field hockey. This week, they were announced as one of two Penn State teams to post a 100% Graduation Success Rate of its athletes — Denise St. Pierre’s women’s golf team is the other — since the GSR was established in 2005.
This year’s Nittany Lions have a deep bench and very local roster. Of the 26 athletes on the squad, 19 are home-grown from Pennsylvania. As is the case throughout collegiate field hockey, though, Char nicely blends in a number of players from outside of PA — from such exotic locales as The Netherlands, Australia, Germany and Wisconsin.
Those roots also run deep with the Penn State coaching staff. Associate head coach Lisa Bervinchak-Love, an All-American in her own right, is in her 29th season on the staff. (All in the family: Her daughter Kelsey is a Penn State starter.) Assistant coach Laura Gebhart, also an All-American at PSU, is in her second season coaching at her alma mater.
FIGHT SONG
The mix this season has been a great one for the Nittany Lions, who are two wins away from their first national title since 1981, won in the last year of the AIAW under the tutelage of Char’s mentor, the late Gillian Rattray.
“I had an interview this morning with ESPN,” Char said this week, “and they asked me what’s so special about this team and what I enjoy about them. I said it’s just that we have a lot of fun. I have a lot of fun. I love going to practice. I love going to meetings, I love getting on a bus with them. We had a game at Bucknell (a 4-0 victory in October) and they sang on the bus the entire way back.
“Our recruiting message is that we are a family and you’re with your family the rest of your life. It’s not a four-year experience you have here. It’s a lifetime journey. And I think that is really what makes Penn State such a special, special place.
“We have a culture here that is very grounded. Their energy and their positivity — whether it is the players who are on the field or who are on our bench — is what makes this team not just successful, but special.”
