By Dustin Dopirak, Daily News-Record
Junior Katie Lamm scored her team leading third goal of the season against Frostburg State. (Courtesy Wayne Gehman)
Jen Edris’ place as the second-leading scorer in EMU women’s soccer history is more than a little fleeting and she knows it.
All it’s going to take is one goal, or even two assists, by junior Katie Lamm sometime between now and the end of the 2008 season for Edris – who is in the EMU record books under her maiden name, Jennifer Morey – to fall back to third.
But don’t go anointing Lamm as No. 2 in Edris’ presence just yet.
“He-hem, third,” Edris, now an assistant coach at EMU, jokingly bristled after practice last Thursday when a reporter suggested that Lamm was already second on the list. “I was just telling her, I don’t know why anyone would want to interview you. You’re not even in the top two in all-time scoring.”
“We’ll change that tomorrow,” Lamm shot back in a half-hearted attempt to feign cockiness, a personality trait she doesn’t appear to possess.
Surprisingly, she was wrong, and Edris’ mark survived the weekend. On Friday, Lamm was shut out for the first time this season in a 2-0 loss to Roanoke, and Sunday she failed to score again in the Royals’ scoreless tie with Goshen College in Lancaster, Pa.
That allows Edris to stay No. 2 at least until Saturday, when the Royals (3-2-1) play at Old Dominion Athletic Conference rival Lynchburg, but it’s hard to believe she’ll get to enjoy it much longer than that. Only once in Lamm’s EMU career – in the final three games of last season – has she suffered through a scoring drought longer than two games.
Several Records in Sight
With seven goals this season, Lamm has a career total of 41, which is already good for second all-time behind only 2004 graduate Ellie Lind, who finished with 76. Lamm’s 86 total points are surpassed only by Edris’ 87 and Lind’s 183.
The points record is probably out of reach. Lamm isn’t piling up assists with quite as high a frequency as she is goals – she has four in her career – and Lind finished with a school-record 31. But the forward from Newmanstown, Pa., is nearly on pace to score more goals than anyone in the history of the Park View school.
“It’s a goal I think she’s set for herself,” coach Holly Shifflett said. “There’s no doubt in my mind she’ll be able to do it.”
Shifflett feels so strongly about Lamm’s chances because the former East Lebanon County High School star has already overcome several obstacles that could’ve derailed her pursuit.
Injuries Not an Obstacle
After scoring 15 goals as a freshman and earning ODAC Rookie of the Year honors, Lamm grinded through injuries as a sophomore. In one of the season’s first practices, she collided with assistant coach Jonathan Kratz – who was playing to give the Royals enough for an 11-on-11 scrimmage – and sprained the medial collateral ligament in her right knee, an injury that still forces her to wear a bulky knee brace.
Later that season Lamm suffered a sprained right ankle, forcing her to tape her right leg nearly from thigh to foot.
“Trainers loved me,” said Lamm, a health and physical education major who also works in the athletic trainer’s office and is thinking about pursuing a master’s degree in athletic training. “They had to buy a whole extra box of tape just to deal with me.”
And in addition to being hampered by physical ailments, she had to deal with opponents doing everything in their power to slow her down. Sometimes she faces double and even triple teams, but that still didn’t keep her from scoring 19 goals, good for third in the ODAC, and earning first-team all-conference honors.
“I don’t think about it,” Lamm said of getting marked. “People say,