Competing has always come naturally for Stephanie Asher, a senior attacker on the Elon lacrosse team. With her time winding to a close at Elon, she is looking to make a big push to finish her career out in style.
With her competitive fire usually on display either in practice or on game day, Asher traces those roots back to her mom.
“If you have ever met my mom, she is just about the loudest and most competitive person you could ever meet,” Asher said, adding, “Growing up with her as my coach has made me who I am as a competitor.”
That competitive nature has paid off tenfold for Asher as she has been showered with accolades in her time at Elon. In 2015 she was named Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Rookie of the Year, along with being named the team’s Most Valuable Player. She was also named to the First Team All-CAA in her 2016 and 2017 campaigns, and was named the CAA Women's Lacrosse Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 2017.
While all of those achievements may be shocking to some, fifth-year head coach Josh Hexter isn't surprised by Asher's output. Hexter knows just how much Asher has meant to this program in the five short years it has been around.
“Her ability to just bring it every day in practice and her work ethic and aggression, and competitive spirit in practice has really built our program to where it is now,” said Hexter.
This competitive drive is something that you will always see from Asher – it’s who she is and it’s what she does. “I think it’s just kind of innate,” Asher said of her work ethic, adding, “I don’t really have a '50 percent' switch. I am either on or I am off and I usually like to be on.”
Hexter is hoping that some of the work Asher does not only in games but also in practice will begin to rub off on the other players.
“We never need to ask her to work hard. That has been an issue with this team this year, our work ethic in practice, and I think some of that shows in our loses where we are not aggressive enough and we turn the ball over too much,” Hexter said.
With these mistakes Elon's record has fallen to 2-10. That is a striking contrast to last year when they finished 13-7 in the CAA and made their way to the NCAA tournament for the first time in program history. This will be the first time Elon’s record has been below .500 since their inaugural 2014 season when they went 8-9.
While that may get some people down, knowing Asher, that will just make her want to compete even more. Asher has proven herself time and time again as a force to be reckoned with offensively. She will hang up her Maroon and Gold jersey one last time and walk away with a laundry list of records for the team.
Asher will walk away from Elon with the most points, goals, shots, free-position goals, and draw controls in the programs history. She will also be in the top 10 all-time in assists, ground balls, caused turnovers, games played, and games started.
Asher has continued to dazzle this season as well. She currently leads the team in goals, points, shots, and draw controls. She is second in assists this year behind fellow senior attacker Nicole Sinacori.
Though she is proud of all of her accomplishments, it was never her ambition to come into Elon and write her name in the record books. Instead, she wanted to make sure she left the jersey in a better place than where she found it.
“Going in knowing that it is a startup program, I was just looking to see where we can build this team to and in four years try to make this a great program,” Asher said. “I think we have done a good job of that so far, so I’m really excited about that and hope that we can continue to build the program this season and leave a legacy to build on.”
With all of her success through her time at Elon, some may think Asher has a very intense and complex way to get herself in the zone for game day. While Asher still has a specific routine she follows, it may look a lot more like the average day for a college student than one might think.
“I wake up and I have peanut banana toast. Then I have class or I hang out with roommates, really just trying to stay light on my feet,” said Asher of her game day rituals. “Then we usually have a walk through, followed by Panera as a team, and I always have to get some iced coffee in there somewhere. Then we have a nice little dance party in the locker room, we leave pumped up for the game, have a good warm-up, and then have a good game.”
With just three games left in the regular season, Asher senses her time as a Phoenix winding to a close. Although she will miss her time spent under the oaks, the thing she will miss most about Elon is the people she has been surrounded by for the past four years.
“I’m really just going to miss my teammates and all of the time that I get to spend with them. We have so much fun every practice, every game, it’s just so much fun being out there with them,” said Asher, adding, “And I’m really going to miss the aspect of being able to compete in a game I love all of the time.”
Once her time is complete at Elon, the Glenelg, Maryland native is planning on attending nursing school, though she is not sure where yet, in the hopes of becoming a nurse practitioner.
But before the exercise science major strikes out on her own into the world after Elon, she must battle though three more CAA regular season games, and if they are able to place within the top four teams in the conference, a CAA title run beginning May 4 in Harrisonburg, Virginia.