Maryland women’s lacrosse graduate student Emily Sterling recently chatted with PressBox about how she started playing goalie, being recruited by Terps head coach Cathy Reese and more. The 5-foot-5 goalie posted a 9.60 goals-against average and .474 save percentage in 2023, earning Big Ten Goaltender of the Year honors for a second straight year.
Sterling is a native of Bel Air, Md., and graduate of John Carroll. Her sister, Maddy, is a redshirt sophomore midfielder on the Terps.
PressBox: How did you become interested in lacrosse?
Emily Sterling: [Younger sister Maddy and I] played soccer, basketball and lacrosse all growing up. [Our parents] never told us that we had to choose a sport or we had to stick with a sport, just kind of whatever we loved. We were definitely the type of whatever season we were in at the time. If it was winter, we loved basketball. If it was spring, we loved lacrosse. If it was fall, we loved soccer. But as we grew up, we realized we definitely did have a special draw to lacrosse, and our parents were very flexible in terms of saying, “Hey, if you guys are serious about lacrosse and you want to pursue this, we would let you play travel, we can help you try out for club teams,” and that sort of thing. My sister and I stuck with it and we absolutely loved it, so it obviously hasn’t stopped since then.
PB: Who were the biggest influences on your game growing up?
ES: I’d have to say [former Terps goalie] Megan Taylor. When she was at Maryland, I was in high school and I really just loved watching her play. I think she had a very unique style of play, but also a very laid-back style, too. I’ve gotten to know her well off the field, and [she has] that kind of laid-back personality that I really admired in terms of, “All right, our job is really hard, especially being a goalie,” but watching her play and just enjoy it, you watch her play and you realize how much she loved the game and how much she loved playing and that was really awesome for me to see.
PB: How did you get into playing goalie?
ES: I was playing in a rec lacrosse league at the time, and they had an all-star game at the end of the season [when I was 11 or 12 years old]. It was like a little all-star tournament, and we needed somebody to go in goal. I was like, “Oh, I’ll do it, why not?” I really loved being back there. I was making saves. I was enjoying it. I was talking to everybody. I was like, “Mom, that was really cool.” My parents were like, “Please never get in goal again. We were freaking out the entire time you were in there.” My coach was like, “Would you like to do that for a second game?” I was like, “I would love to do it for our second game.” And then since then I just kind of didn’t look back. I just really fell in love with the position as soon as I got back there. I really haven’t looked back since that one day.
PB: What memories do you have from playing at John Carroll?
ES: I thought it was really awesome. I definitely kind of explored going to different schools, more toward the Baltimore area where lacrosse is really concentrated and there’s definitely some high-level competition, but I really liked the opportunity to kind of represent my hometown. John Carroll’s right in my back yard, so that was a super fun experience for me to play there and play with the girls that I had really grown up with because that team was pretty much my Bel Air travel team growing up, my Bel Air rec team when we were younger. It was really cool getting to play with those girls through all those years.
PB: Why did you choose to go to Maryland?
ES: I think anybody who’s at least remotely familiar with the lacrosse world [has] heard about the University of Maryland women’s lacrosse culture and their family environment. I heard so much about it growing up. Of course, you’re always a little skeptical when you’re going on recruiting visits because you know people are trying to put on a good show for you. But the first moment that I stepped on campus, my recruiting date wasn’t until two days after this little clinic. Cathy was like, “Hey, come by to this clinic and then you’ll have your visit two days later. We just want to get you on campus first.” I had shown up, I was walking around, I didn’t really know anybody and I was just finding a spot on the field. Cathy poked her head out of the door and was like, “Emily! Come on over here!” I ran inside the locker room, she gave me a big hug and I felt like I had known her all my life. She was that way through all of camp, and then I show up on my recruiting visit. Not only did I see and feel that love from Cathy, but also from all the girls that were actively playing on the team when I was on my visit watching them practice. That energy and that love and that passion that Cathy had shown me on that first day was radiating through all the girls on that team. I was like, “This is home. This is a place that I want to be and a culture that I want to be a part of.”
PB: What’s your favorite memory so far at Maryland?
ES: That’s a tough one. There are so many that come to mind. I’m going to make this a little more broad. Cathy’s pregame speeches are one of the best things ever because she kind of knows always exactly what to say, what we’re all thinking going into a game no matter how big or how far or whatever type of competition that we’re playing. She kind of just nails all of her speeches. I remember specifically our Northwestern game my junior year. We were definitely very fired up. We had a little bit of a harder year the year beforehand. But that junior year we were like, “All right, we can do this.” I think that her words and the way that she conveys everything to our team, [they are] like the most memorable words ever. We all look around like, “How does she know exactly what to say every single time?” That’s my lacrosse memory, and then there are other memories just relating to Terp Olympics when we play a different sport out on the field. You have the most athletic people that you’ve ever seen in our life on a lacrosse field that are All-Americans, they’re the best players at their position, but then you give them a basketball or you give them a volleyball and it is complete mayhem and it looks like nobody’s ever played a sport in their life. Those are the fun ones that we’re all laughing until we’re crying.
PB: What’s your favorite thing about College Park?
ES: I just think it’s the campus as a whole. I really love how campus is kind of spread out, but it’s also kind of compact. The entire team was near each other, which is super fun outside of practices. We’re always all together. There’s a ton of stuff to go do. We’re right near D.C. We’re also just outside of Baltimore. So there are plenty of things to go do and go see. We’re all close enough to each other where it’s all walking distance. It kind of just encourages that togetherness bond that we have.
PB: How is developing as a goalie different than it is for everybody else?
ES: I believe that being a goalie, especially when you’re younger, can be a very isolating position. Typically on those younger teams you have one goalie — maybe will have two goalies on a team. Then those goalies are typically fighting for a spot. When the attack goes to shoot, there’s eight or ten attackers going to shoot together. The middies are doing something together. The defenders are doing something together. So there’s always a group. As a goalie, you’re kind of always left on that little island alone, especially if you are the only goalie or if there’s only one other goalie. Even when you’re out, you can’t talk to your friend because they’re in the goal, compared to the rest of the positions on the lacrosse field where even if you’re out of a drill you have somebody to talk to. When you’re younger going through, “Oh wow, I’m the only person back here, this could be kind of tough,” you kind of have to take a little bit more of an individual approach to it, just being that it is a little bit more isolated. And on top of that, there are so many ways to play goalie. I look at some of the best goalies in the NCAA and I think the first 10 people that come to mind who I think are amazing goalies all play completely different from one another. Everybody has their own style, but everyone’s able to save the ball, and that’s the bottom line. That’s what we have to do to be able to do our job well. But it’s cool being able to see how each person develops separately and individually because it’s the nature of that position.
PB: You mentioned that every goalie has a style. What’s your style?
ES: I think my style is honestly very traditional. I stand up pretty straight, pretty compact. I try to make those 45-degree angle setups that some people call them. Recently, I’ve tried to blend in a little bit more of the modern approach, like staying a little bit more flat to my goal line, moving a little bit more laterally, but overall, I was definitely coached growing up through the more traditional sense. It’s definitely evolved a little bit since being in college.
PB: Who’s your best friend on the team and what’s a story that underscores your friendship?
ES: What’s really cool about our team is that a lot of people grew up in Maryland — about 50 percent of the girls I grew up playing with. As we committed, we all lived near each other so we would get to hang out all the time. People like Shay Ahearn, Kate Sites, Libby May, Hannah Leubecker, Sophia Antonopoulos, we all lived right near each other which was a super unique experience because I grew up playing club lacrosse with Hannah Leubecker and Libby May, which was really cool. And to take it back even further, I played travel lacrosse with Hannah Leubecker. These people have been part of my life for not just the past five years that I’ve been here but dating back to when we were first learning how to catch and throw or when I was first learning how to save a ball. Those experiences and those relationships have just grown, and I’m not sure I can necessarily say that I have one friend over the other because those relationships are just too deeply rooted.
PB: Who was a player you looked up to when you first got to Maryland?
ES: When I first got to Maryland, I really looked up to Grace Griffin. I had always thought that she was such a leader. She was always so poised and she was always so confident. She just really knew how to do her job very, very well. She always knew how to lead a team and how to kind of be a shoulder to lean on when you needed somebody but also will be the person [to] hold you accountable in the best way possible.
PB: What advice do you have for younger players going through the recruiting process, particularly goalies?
ES: I think it’s just to embrace those little things that you’re good at, especially as a goalie. The main thing that coaches are going to look at is if you can save a ball, but the truth of the matter is that everybody who’s trying to get recruited can save a ball. So find that one thing that makes you different, makes you stand out. It can be your communication. It can be your leadership style. It can be the way you clear the ball or your play outside of the crease. But do you really use that one thing and just play confident free? Because coaches know when you are confident out on the field, and that just radiates through your defense. It radiates through the midfield and even down to the attacking end, because they know that they have a solid back line in there. So just emanating confidence and just enjoying the game that we love to play so much [is important].
PB: What are your goals for after lacrosse?
ES: I’m currently getting my master’s degree in health care management, which is awesome, so I hope to work in health care management for a little while, maybe pursue the health care consulting route — and hopefully remain in lacrosse to some degree.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Maryland Athletics