Senior Brooke Dieringer, a native of Maryland, has been at Oregon less than a full season and has already bought into one of the West Coast’s stereotypical ideas of fun.
“I think Oregon is great because you can go to the beach and then go to the mountains,” she said.
Sure, she may be laid-back away from Papé Field, but her “East Coast” side emerges in practices.
“I have a good mix in me,” said Dieringer, who plans to move back once she gets her master’s in educational leadership. “I can get a little strung out when everybody gets too laid back, and I get kind of intense about it. I get angry, I guess. So I get myself all revved up.”
Dieringer wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the state when she transferred from North Carolina this year, though.
During the summer of 2004, she was one of a few Tar Heels who flew to Eugene to help a former North Carolina assistant coach put on a clinic for the new lacrosse program at Oregon. Then wearing baby blue, it turned out she was teaching some of her future teammates and working with her current head coach.
The freshmen instructed by Oregon coach Jen Larsen – the leader of the program since 2003 – and Dieringer included many juniors on Oregon’s current roster. And with a little persuasion after last season from a former Tar Heel teammate – Oregon assistant coach Beth Ames – Dieringer eventually migrated west, too.
“I was just ready to move on academically and I knew Jen and Beth because they had both moved already,” said Dieringer, who received her bachelor’s degree in journalism at North Carolina. “I really liked it here when I first came to do the clinic and just thought it was a good opportunity to move here. I’ve really enjoyed myself. It was a good move I think.”
After tearing her left anterior cruciate ligament, Dieringer redshirted and missed the 2005 season in Chapel Hill. She said that it wasn’t where she wanted to be, but watching from the sidelines that year taught her a lot.
“I think I have a lot more compassion for people with injuries and what they are going through,” Dieringer said. “We definitely do a lot of watching and teaching here because it is a new program, so that year out helped me get better at analyzing what’s going on and seeing it from a coach’s perspective.”
Dieringer bounced back in 2006 to start in all 19 of the Tar Heels’ matches and net a team-high 29 goals. By then, she said most of her friends had already graduated, and she would likely have only taken a few classes her fifth year at North Carolina. She also felt like she needed to get a job if she stayed. Dieringer said that Ames, whom she played with for two seasons, helped her make the decision to attend Oregon.
“She saw the opportunity that Beth had, getting into graduate school, and she did contact us,” Larsen said. “After she had talked to her coaching staff and said she wanted a release from the program and talked to us, we were able to make things happen.”
This season, Dieringer has scored a team-high 26 goals and has started in all 14 of Oregon’s matches. Larsen said that Dieringer’s experience as a Tar Heel now helps inject a level of intensity into practices. After all, it was a just a season ago that Dieringer, now 23, scored two goals in the NCAA Tournament quarterfinals against eventual national champion Northwestern.
“Brooke is becoming more and more confident in her verbal leadership,” Larsen said. “She is helping with the knowledge of lacrosse and where the program can go.”
Oregon (9-5, 2-0 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) hasn’t played a conference game in two months, and look to take the program to yet another level of success. The Ducks battle California (5-5, 1-0 MPSF) in Berkeley tomorrow at 11 a.m. and St. Mary’s (3-8, 0-1 MPSF) Sunday at noon. The Ducks are just one win short of tying the program’s best record of 10-9, set last season. That year, Oregon was 7-7 at this point in the season.
The Ducks beat the Golden Bears in the third-place match of last year’s MPSF Tournament, but lost to them in the regular season. St. Mary’s has never defeated Oregon – in fact, the Ducks have outscored the Gaels 76-24 in the programs’ four meetings.