I’m not sure I’d be the player I am without my sister, Taryn Ohlmiller.

When I went to my first lacrosse practice in third grade, Taryn was right alongside me. Together, we fell in love with lacrosse, and it became one of the strongest pieces of our connection.

As kids, we could often be found in the backyard playing catch, going one-on-one, or competing in some silly game that accidentally improved our skills. Our parents supported us in every way they could and were immediately invested in our interest, helping find club teams, watching games, and learning the sport themselves to relate to their daughters.

Taryn was there at Islip High School and played with me for four seasons, because middle schoolers were allowed to play up, and she made varsity as a seventh grader. The same person I have honed so many of my fundamentals with in the grass behind our home when we were much too young to drive was practicing with me, playing with me, and working toward a common goal with me.

When it came time to choose a college, I opted for Stony Brook. Originally, I thought I wanted to go far away from Long Island, but after the Seawolves reached out and I went on a visit, I realized that staying close to home was the right decision for me. I committed to Stony Brook in the summer of 2012, soon before I started my 11^th grade year.

I had no idea I was setting the stage for a family reunion.

Fast forward to 2015. I’m a freshman at Stony Brook, and Taryn is verbally committed to another school. That season, we went 18-2 and 6-0 in league play with America East regular season and tournament titles and a run to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. My sister had a front-row seat for it all, she it opened to her eyes to what was happening just down the road from home.

Taryn switched her commitment and decided to join me at Stony Brook, reuniting the old Ohlmiller duo. I had the fortune of sharing my junior and senior seasons with my little sister, and there’s nothing I’d trade for the experiences we molded together through that run.

In our two seasons at Stony Brook, we were 40-3 overall and 13-0 in the America East, with two conference regular season titles and two conference tournament championships, plus two appearances in the NCAA Tournament Quarterfinals. We helped take Stony Brook women’s lacrosse to places it had never before been, and we did it together.

When we were younger, we both set out to achieve the same goal: play Division I lacrosse. Little did either of us know we would share the same jersey while doing it. I’m so incredibly grateful that’s how it turned out.

Chasing your dream is special. Chasing your dream with one of the most important people to you, who also shares your dream, is beyond that – it’s among the highlights of my life.

Thank you, Taryn, for being my sister, and thank you, lacrosse, for offering me an avenue for an everlasting bond with my best friend.

This article was originally published on Red Label Sports.

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I wouldn’t be the player I am today without years and years of practice. What you see on the field couldn’t be possible without countless hours of work away from the cameras and stands. Over time, I’ve honed in one what I think are the best lacrosse drills to improve as a player.

It’s not just as simple as only doing these drills time and time again – you need more variety than that to be a fully well-rounded player. But these five lacrosse drills are what I consider to the best at molding superstar laxers.

The 5 Best Lacrosse Drills

Step Down Triangle

This drill will help you control your footwork and improve your power shooting technique.

Start by setting up three cones in a triangle close to the cage. Take a step-down shot, use quick footwork to reset to the center, and then do a fading step-down shot.

Inside Roll

This drill works on one of my favorite dodges – the inside roll.

Start behind the cage. Drive and work on getting a good spot inside the 8-meter, faking topside and tucking your stick and body to get underneath an imaginary defender. Then, work on finishing running across the crease.

Figure 8

This drill will work on your footwork, using both hands, and finishing on the run.

Run in a figure 8 pattern and receive passes both lefty and righty as you cut around the curve of the figure 8. Set up close to the cage so once you receive the pass, you can work on in-tight accurate catching, faking, and finishing on the run.

X – Finisher

This drill works on finishing your shot with no angle and your footwork around the crease.

Start at X. Split dodge at the back of the crease, then roll dodge right back around the crease to take a low-angle shot before crossing the goal-line extended. Be sure to focus on your footwork around the crease, and then turning your hips and squaring your shoulders to see around the goalie.

Crow Hop Hitch Crow Hop

This drill will work on using your step-down shot as a fake and as a finish.

Start with the wind-up motion of selling a step-down shot with a crow hop, then use that to step around an imaginary defender and go right into another crow hop to release the step-down shot.

Want More?

Check out the KO17 Lacrosse app, full of videos with drills and other instructions to help you get better, podcasts with other accomplished people in the game, film breakdowns, information on clinics and camps, and so much more!

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When Taryn, my younger sister, and I would play in the backyard with our sticks as kids, we loved the limitless possibilities of the game. Lacrosse allowed us creativity in physical form, and the more we had our sticks in our hands, the more accustomed we would be to them, and thus the game would come easier. The nature of women’s lacrosse unleashed silliness, passion, and a whole of fun in the back of our house.

It gave us something else: the opportunity to set goals. We could aim for personal achievements and improvements, making certain teams, even coming up with the coolest stick. But we had something to set our sights on, and not long after discovering the game, our overarching goal was to become Division I lacrosse players.

Playing professionally? The thought never crossed our minds when we were forging lasting memories in the backyard, on the beach, and anywhere else we could bring our sticks. Such a thing did not exist, and the idea that it could exist wasn’t under consideration. Unlike other young athletes who can dream of playing the sport they love for a living, lacrosse girls my age didn’t have that.

It wasn’t until I was an upperclassman at Stony Brook that the concept of continuing my playing career was a remote possibility. I didn’t even know what sponsorship deals were, and the first professional women’s lacrosse league began play in 2016 when I was in the middle of college. If not for a lot of hard work from the women who came before me, some great wisdom from my Stony Brook coach Joe Spallina, and some fortunate timing, I’d probably be only coaching right now rather than competing at the highest level and making a living doing it.

But that hasn’t been my reality, and I’m incredibly grateful for it. I am fortunate enough to be a professional at the sport I’ve loved since I was 8, and that’s a dream come true, even if I never knew it before. I’m very proud to be able to say that I make money off of something I love.

I want more lacrosse women to have that same chance.

Women’s lacrosse is in a much different place than it was five years ago, let alone when I was a kid. But it’s not where it can and should be. Not even close.

The growth potential for the game, and for women’s sports as a whole, is astronomical. When men’s professional sports leagues were beginning in North America, it took decades for them to find stability. Comparatively, women’s professional sports are in their infancy. It’s taken the WNBA 25 years to get to where it is now, and it’s been with plenty of growing pains and still tons of room to expand. I don’t see any reason why women’s lacrosse can’t do the same.

It will take a while, probably longer than I’ll be able to play for. But it will come, and I try to do my part to ensure it.

Growing the game is part of my daily life. Beyond what I do on the field, I founded my own training company, KO17 Lacrosse, to help push professional women’s lacrosse forward enough so female lacrosse athletes don’t have to have a job on the side to make ends meet.

What will that look like? Who’s to say. It’s difficult for me to even articulate goals for my own professional playing career, other than to win a gold medal with Team USA at the Women’s World Championship and to play for as long as my body will let me, because things can change. We wouldn’t have imagined the sport looking the way it does now five-to-10 years ago, and who knows what form it’ll take in five-to-10 years from now. But if I can reach as many girls as possible across the world, spread the game, and share my lacrosse journey with athletes who hope to fall in love with this sport the same way I did growing up in my Long Island backyard with my little sister, then it’s more likely that the next generation of girls can have a much more concrete answer to what they hope to achieve in their playing careers.

The limitless possibilities of lacrosse are what drew me to it. Those same limitless possibilities are what drive me to grow it.

This article was originally published on Fivestar News.

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