Kristin Sommar Jenney didn’t do much losing during her high-profile lacrosse career.
She won four national championships (and lost just five games) during her time at Maryland, and she won a gold medal with the U.S. Women’s National Team in 2001. Somehow, though, her final game ended without a victory celebration.
In 2005, she and the U.S. team earned a silver medal after losing to Australia in the championship final on home soil in Annapolis, Md. For someone with such decorated career, Jenney didn’t go out on top.
She leaned on lessons learned from her Maryland coach, Cindy Timchal.
“Losing is part of the game and it’s about how you bounce back,” Jenney said.
Jenney’s resume is chock full of individual accomplishments, too, like three All-American honors, three NCAA tournament team nods and two All-ACC recognitions. She was selected to the ACC’s 50th Anniversary Team in 2002.
And in January, Jenney will take her place among the game’s luminaries in the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame. Tickets can be purchased here.
“Did I ever think when I was playing that I was going to be inducted into the Hall of Fame? No,” she said. “Was that a goal of mine? No. I was just going to play lacrosse because I loved to do it and it was fun.”
Jenney was drawn to lacrosse in seventh grade. She still has her first wooden stick, the same one that helped her fall in love with the game. She met Erin Brown Millon, who coached her at a Maryland camp, and knew she had a future in the sport.
With two straight NCAA championships captured before Jenney even stepped foot on campus, Maryland was in the early stages of a dynasty. Jenney and her teammates simply didn’t want to be the team that snapped the streak.
Despite an 0-2 start in her sophomore year, the same year in which Maryland failed to win the ACC championship, the Terps still kept their stranglehold atop the women’s lacrosse world throughout her entire college career.
Jenney, a midfielder, was naturally one of the keys. A true two-way middie, Jenney played into Timchal’s style – fast and smart. She finished her career with 104 goals and 72 assists but did her best work on the defensive side and in transition.
“I played with a lot of phenomenal people, so I understood that I wasn’t, and I didn’t want to be, the one to score all the goals,” Jenney said. “I always say, ‘Everyone has a role, and as soon as you figure out what your role is, everything falls into place.’”
It’s a message Jenney now preaches to her high school players as the head coach at Wilmington Friends School (Del.). Not a flashy player herself, Jenney enjoys watching the talent of today unleash behind-the-back shots and other high-level shows of stick skills. But ultimately, it’s about doing what it takes to win.
One of the flashiest players of the past decade, Charlotte North, just so happens to be the favorite player of Jenney’s 10-year-old daughter, Palmer. Jenney’s started to see the game from a new perspective, one as a parent.
“It’s amazing to see it through her eyes and see the role models that some of these players are now,” Jenney said. “My daughter met Charlotte North, and at that time, Charlotte was No. 10 on the U.S. team. Palmer’s going around telling everyone that Charlotte is her favorite player, rightfully so. I don’t think at that time she knew I wore No. 10. Then I had one of my jerseys, and she was like, ‘Is that Charlotte North’s jersey?’ I’m like, ‘No, it’s mine. I was 10 before her.’”
North was one of the gold medalists that won the World Lacrosse World Championship in 2022 in Towson, Md. – becoming the first senior women’s team to win on home soil.
That moment was vindicating for Jenney as an alum of the program.
“I don’t think there will be another home soil jinx like that,” she said.
Moving forward, Jenney is pumped for the 2028 Olympics and hopes it opens doors for more people to love the sport like she has. It’s given her so much as an athlete, coach and parent.
“The sport has done so much for me,” she said. “I love the sport, and I want others to love it, too. I really want everyone to try it or be a part of it somehow.”
Spoken like a true Hall of Famer.
