Minium: ODU Women's Lacrosse Opens Against Elon Today With Renewed Optimism

NORFOLK, Va. – As part of her master plan to rebuild Old Dominion's women's lacrosse team, second-year head coach Theresa Walton assigned some mandatory reading for her players this fall and winter. 

All 38 members of her team read "Chop Wood, Carry Water," an inspiring story about the difficulties a young boy faces in trying to become a Samurai Warrior. 

One of the best quotes from the book is "Success is not guaranteed, but hard work always pays off." One of the book's most salient points for an athlete is that you may think you're working hard when you're really not. 

And the book has resonated with her Monarchs, who open play today at 1 p.m. against Elon at the L.R. Hill Sports Center. 

"Discussing the book helped bring us together," said Gillian Smith, a sophomore midfielder from James River High School just outside of Richmond. 

Walton and assistant coaches Meg Clements and Hailey Dobbins and volunteer coach Allie Murray, who have worked for a year and a half to rebuild a program that has struggled. 

Saddled by injuries, the Monarchs were 4-13 in Walton's first season as head coach. The Monarchs haven't had a winning season since 2016, when they won the Atlantic Sun Tournament and received an NCAA bid. 

ODU is a combined 24-71 over the last six years and has won only one game in the American Athletic Conference, the Monarchs' current league, which is among the best nation's best lacrosse leagues. 

"A lot of people said it would take four or five years to rebuild this program," Walton said. "But I think we're there.

"We've seen changes in everyone, including all of our seniors, all of our upper classmen. 

"We've emphasized what hard work actually looks and feels like and becoming great teammates."
 
Smith said she's seen dramatic changes in her short time at ODU.

 
Freshman Brooke Frishman will play for Israel's U20 team in the World Championships.

"We all agree that we got so lucky with our new coaches," she said. "Last year we made progress in making the team feel more like a cohesive group. And then this year, we're really improved. 

"It feels like every day that we get closer as a team, that it feels like a family. We're at a great place now where everybody is connecting so well, and we love each other so much." 

Walton recruited well in the offseason, but she is fortunate in that she also has experience. Of the 38 players, 21 are upper classmen, including five graduate students. 

"I've heard from so many of the returning girls that this season feels different than previous years," said freshman Brooke Frishman, who was a highly-recruited midfielder out of Reston in Northern Virginia. 

"All three of our coaches are just amazing. They just work so well together and they have a plan, a vision, to take ODU lacrosse to the next level. 

"Everyone is on board. Every single girl on our team has just been working so hard. We're really learning how to mesh and work together as a team." 

Smith and Frishman are in a way symbols of the progress of ODU lacrosse. This past summer, both made teams that will compete in international tournaments this summer. 

Smith will play for the Irish Senior Team that will compete in the European championships in Bruga, Portugal. Frishman will compete in the World Lacrosse Championships in Hong Kong for the Israeli Under 20 Team. 

Both are Americans but have family ties that qualified them to compete for Ireland and Israel. 

Smith has the closest familial ties to the country she will represent. Her great grandparents came from Ireland. 

Like many European countries, Ireland allows the offspring of ethnic Irish to maintain dual citizenship. Her family has steadfastly maintained their ties to Ireland, both through dual citizenship and in celebrating the Irish culture. 

"My mom sent my paperwork over with my birth registration stuff to Ireland almost as soon as I popped out," Smith said with a laugh. 

Smith isn't an Irish name – her father, Matt Smith, runs a marketing business in Richmond and is on the University of Richmond football and men's basketball radio crews. 

But her mother is Heather O'Shea, and O'Shea is about as Irish as you can get. 

Her mother made sure her daughter appreciated her Irish roots. At four years old, she was encouraged to take up Irish Step Dancing – think of the Riverdance touring group. By the time she was eight, she was dancing competitively. 

She and her Mom traveled to Ireland several times for dancing competition where she met family members still living in Ireland. , Her affinity for Ireland grew with each trip. 

She was also an athlete but didn't take up a sports seriously until an older cousin earned a lacrosse scholarship to the University of Michigan. 

"When she committed to play there and went off to college, I told my Mom, 'I want to do that. I want to go play in college,'" she said. 

She started for the basketball and field hockey teams at James River, but she focused on lacrosse, in which she lettered four times. 


Gillian Smith with her grandfather, Michael O'Shea.

Her grandfather, the late Michael O'Shea, also maintained ties to Ireland. Born to a poor family in rural Pennsylvania, he opened a lumber business that prospered and later opened a pub in Baltimore named, of course, Mick O'Shea's. 

He was a member of every Irish association that existed in Baltimore and each St. Patrick's Day set a reviewing stand in front of his pub and commented on the parade. He was adored by all 13 of his grandchildren, who knew him as Pop-Pop. 

He passed away after coming down with Covid in 2021.

"That's one of the reasons I was so determined to make this team and to help Ireland win," Gillian said. 

"I know he is up there watching me. I want to make him proud." 

Losing her grandfather is still a sore spot for Smith -- she teared up talking about him during an interview. She draws his initials on the tape around her wrists before every game. 

"Nobody in my family has done something like this before. It's an opportunity to not only make my family in America proud, but also my family in Ireland," she said. 

"The Irish culture is a huge part of who I am. When I was dancing, it was near and dear to my heart because of my heritage. People sometimes overlook how close knit the Irish are.

"On St. Patrick's Day, everyone likes to be Irish. But it's not the same thing. To be Irish is something very special."
 
Frishman was also a latecomer to lacrosse. She was a standout soccer player but during her last year of middle school, decided she wanted to play lacrosse, a decision that perplexed her parents, given that she was playing on a national soccer team.

"My mom told me to follow my passion," she said.

She made the transition seamlessly and that's not a surprise given her family background. 

Her uncle, Michael Weiss, was a three-time national champion figure skater and an Olympic medalist. Her grandfather, Greg, was a gymnast on the 1964 Olympic team and Margie, her grandmother, was also a gymnast and a national champion. 

Much closer to home, her mother, Genna Weiss Frishman, was a seven-time national champion in platform diving and also won a world championship. 

"I'm so fortunate to have grown up surrounded by so many great athletes," she said. 

That especially came in handy when the pandemic shut down virtually every athletic team in America in 2020. 

"I had just switched to lacrosse," she said. "And there was nowhere for me and my family to go to practice or play on a field. 

"Thank God my family is full of athletes. I remember my mom and my grandmother helping me to learn lacrosse on videos on the Internet, just helping me to learn as fast as possible. 

"We would practice for hours in my basement, in my backyard or any school we could find." 

She carried on the family tradition in a big way. She led Dominion High School – ironic given she now plays for ODU – to three state lacrosse championships. 

She was the MVP of the field hockey, indoor track and lacrosse teams and set a school lacrosse record with 80 goals as a senior. 

A member of the National Honor Society, she had offers from 15 schools but had already developed relationships with ODU assistant coaches while attending lacrosse camps. 

"When I stepped on the ODU campus and met coach Walton and all the amazing players, I just knew it was my home" she said. "I kind of knew it was the place for me kind of like when I picked up a lacrosse stick and knew lacrosse was for me." 

Her connections with Israel aren't as close as Smith's with Ireland. She has never been to Israel but her father is Jewish and that is enough in the eyes of sports administrators in the Jewish homeland. 

She didn't know anything about the Israeli team tryouts until about 30 hours beforehand, when she got a text from a former teammate saying the Under 20 team wanted her to come to Vero Beach, Florida, and try out. 

She will attend camp in Israel with her teammates this summer, "And I can't wait to go there. I've always wanted to visit Israel." 
During her week in Vero Beach, "There were girls from everywhere. The U20 team and national team all played together and there were so many amazing girls. 


Brooke Frishman

From Penn State to Maryland to Michigan to UNC and Penn. There were two professional players. I was so honored to be on the field with them and learn from them." 

She said she will represent Israel "proudly."
 
"Just the feeling of wearing a country's name on your chest is amazing," she said. "it's an indescribable feeling, not only being able to represent ODU Nation, but also my Israeli teammates. 

"The Olympians in my family have told me what it's like to represent a country. It's something I highly respect and honor and I'm just so thankful to have this opportunity." 

Smith said that she and her teammates are on a mission to transform ODU lacrosse. 

"For a while now we've been looked at as the worst team" in the AAC, she said. "I mean, we were the worst team. 

"We won four games. There's no tiptoeing around that. We're all staring that in the face and we know that's not what ODU lacrosse is going to be about anymore." 

ODU lost nine players to injuries last season, including six to ACL injuries. Five are back after having ACL surgery. Senior Haley O'Connor underwent successful surgery but then re-injured her knee. And while that ended her career as a player, she is still with the team, helping in any way that she can.

Lilly Siskind, who had 57 goals and 20 assists in 2022, was injured five games into last season and returns for a sixth season.
 
Defender Katie McGrain was the lone ODU choice on the All-AAC preseason team. The Monarchs picked up an experienced player in Cammie Mann, who played at VCU and coached last season at Randolph-Macon. 

She returns to the playing field this season. "She's a really smart, experienced player," Walton said. 

"Our goal is to get to Nashville," Smith said, referring to the AAC championship semifinals and final to be hosted by Vanderbilt. 
In order to do so, the Monarchs would have to finish fourth or better in the league. 

The AAC sent two schools – league champion Florida and James Madison – to the NCAA Tournament last season. Cincinnati, East Carolina, Temple and Vanderbilt are also in the league. 

"That's our biggest goal, to get to the tournament," Smith said. 

"We've worked so hard to get ready for this season. We have all the tools, the players and coaches, to get there."
 
 Minium is ODU's Senior Executive Writer for Athletics. Contact him at hminium@odu.edu or follow him  on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram