Former, current Nittany Lions reflect on 2012 College Cup run

More than 1,000 days have gone by, and Dec. 2, 2012 still stings.

Maddy Evans, years removed from her days as a Nittany Lion, remembers it clearly: On a partly cloudy day in San Diego, the Penn State women’s soccer team fell by three goals to North Carolina in the national championship game.

Evans, then a senior, and her teammates were hurt. Their season, a remarkable one by all standards, was over.

Five of Evans’ teammates who shared in the pain of coming oh so close have a chance at redemption, though.

Penn State, seeking its first national championship, plays Rutgers in the NCAA Tournament semifinals on Friday in Cary, N.C. — and Evans will be watching closely.

“Obviously the result was a tough one,” Evans said of the 2012 finish, “but that’s all the more reason for the girls to come out this weekend and go after it.”

Penn State goalkeeper Britt Eckerstrom is a leader on this 2015 team, with her play and her experience. A fifth-year senior tasked with keeping the players in front of her disciplined, it’s not an easy job.

But Eckerstrom has lived for those moments, and so far, thrived in them.

Days before the College Cup, though, she thought back to a time when she wasn’t in charge, when she wasn’t looked to for leadership.

Instead, she was a youngster along for the ride.

Eckerstrom didn’t play in the 2012 College Cup. The keeper appeared in 11 games that season, but senior Erin McNulty was the director of the defense in net. Eckerstrom watched from afar, taking everything in.

Eckerstrom said the 4-1 loss to North Carolina was tough to stomach, but her lasting memory from Penn State’s 2012 run was in its semifinal win against Florida State.

Evans agreed.

After a scoreless first half, the Nittany Lions struck in the 56th minute, a goal from Maya Hayes, assisted by now-senior Mallory Weber.

Juiced by the second-half goal, Penn State held firm, and it looked like it would come away with a 1-0 decision.

That possibility was dashed with less than a minute to go. A Seminole goal at the 89:19 mark was a stunner, for sure, and it could have sunk Penn State’s ship.

“But we weren’t having any of that,” Evans said.

Just 72 seconds into overtime, Penn State’s Christine Nairn notched the winner, sending Penn State to the title game.

Nairn wouldn’t have scored, though, without a cross from the right wing into the box from Evans.

“If I think back, that was the highlight of my entire college career,” she said.

It’s one of the program’s all-time highlights, too.

Since graduating and moving on, Evans has kept in touch with her former teammates, following Penn State’s success from Chicago — “Big Ten land” as she called it.

She has showed up to a few games as well, traveling to see Penn State’s Oct. 15 road game at Purdue, and coming back to State College for the team’s multigoal tournament wins over Boston University and Ohio State.

Evans said she’s proud of the current seniors she previously played with, and really, the whole squad for its accomplishments.

“They’re so in sync right now,” Evans said. “They’re playing as a team. They lose the ball, they’re winning it right back.

“They’re playing with Penn State pride.”

For coach Erica Walsh, the two teams played with the same pride, but with different mindsets.

The nine-year coach said the 2012 squad seemed excited just to make it to the College Cup, unlike the 2015 team’s approach.

“I think this group, there was an expectation that there was a level we were going to achieve this year,” Walsh said. “That was the goal we set.”

Perhaps that stemmed from a certain conversation years ago.

In reaching, but losing, the national championship game in 2012, Penn State’s seniors sat down with the freshmen.

“Hey, this is the standard now,” Evans recalls her and her fellow upperclassmen saying. “We want to make it back to the Final Four. We want to make it back to the national championship game, and eventually win one. That’s the Penn State standard.”

Those then-teammates who are now seniors have made it to the College Cup.

Only two games stand in their way of setting a new Penn State standard.

This story was originally published December 2, 2015 at 9:28 PM with the headline "Former, current Nittany Lions reflect on 2012 College Cup run."