Life in the fast lane

Only the most gifted of athletes can change a game without even touching the ball. They're few and far between in any sport, and to have even one pass through a program in a span of a couple years is an accomplishment unto itself.

But only a year removed from losing its last great, all-everything legend Katie O'Donnell, the Terrapins field hockey team may have already found her heir.

The player's true impact was obvious only to a select few Sunday. With the Terrapins field hockey team locked in a scoreless tie with Syracuse late in the second half of its NCAA Tournament game, Megan Frazer streaked across the midfield line and swung the ball to Janessa Pope on the left side of the field. Pope pushed the ball up to a wide-open Katie Gerzabek in the shooting circle, who ripped a shot past Syracuse goalkeeper Leann Stiver for the Terps' first goal of the contest.

Moments before, Jill Witmer had sprinted down the right sideline, flanked closely by two Orange defenders. The ball never reached her stick in that sequence.

Yet in the eyes of Missy Meharg, Witmer had as much to do with that goal as her teammates who'd handled the ball.

"That whole space was clearly developed because Jill ran at top speed toward the right-corner flag," the longtime coach said. "In her mind, her competitiveness, it's: ‘I need to be the one finishing.' We don't need her to do that. We just need her to be doing what she's doing."

What Witmer did Sunday wasn't the first time she opened up a scoring opportunity for her teammates, and it surely won't be the last. With Witmer only in her second season with the team, Meharg said her speed and scoring ability has already put her in a position to be next in a long line of great players in the Terps' program as she looks to capture her second consecutive national championship this weekend.

"I'm just happy she's here and not someplace else," Meharg said.

FAST START

The launch of Witmer's field hockey career wasn't born out of love and adoration for the game. Rather, it came more from a begrudging acceptance of a parent's urging to keep playing.

"I just hated the sport. I didn't understand the rules, so I kind of just ran around not knowing what to do," the Lancaster, Pa., native said. "My dad convinced me to stay with it until ninth grade because we had a really good coach and he just told me to try it, and if I didn't like it I didn't have to do it."

Yet even as she showed an initial distaste for the sport, she could do little to hide her raw athletic ability. As soon as then-second year Penn Manor coach Matt Soto and his coaching staff saw her run around, they knew they had a special player.

"With that speed and that skill, she could pretty much do whatever she wants against most players," Soto said. "She had fast breakaways, could score at will and she was very handy around the goal cage, too. She's very clever, she has some very natural goal-scoring abilities, and combine that with speed and quickness, you have a very remarkable young athlete."

Perhaps the highest praise the Penn Manor standout received came from O'Donnell. Shortly after the Terps were eliminated from the NCAA Tournament in 2007, O'Donnell was back home in Blue Bell, Pa., watching the 2007 state field hockey championship. What she saw on TV made her reach for her phone. Within a minute, O'Donnell had texted her coach.

"[Katie] just said, ‘There's this girl I want to play with my senior year,'" Meharg said. "She just stood out. She was just this little, tiny blonde thing that would just run past everybody in every direction. … That definitely put a bug in me to get in gear and really recruit Jill Witmer."

The recognition from one of the nation's top programs was more than enough to bring Witmer to College Park. Three seasons later, O'Donnell and Witmer stepped onto the field together as starters for the Terps.

Said Witmer: "I think it's just cool that [Katie] noticed me."

UNUSUAL TRANSITION

The transition from high school to college is never simple. Moving from a graduating class of hundreds to one of thousands — at a campus as big as some towns — is intimidating enough.

Having to go from an English class of five — all of them siblings — to a lecture filled with hundreds of strangers is another challenge altogether. Witmer, who was homeschooled by her mother, Judy Witmer, through her senior year of high school, said her upbringing didn't have any ill effects on her standing with her teammates at Penn Manor or her play on the field.