Behrend Women’s Soccer’s Whipple Poised for Final AMCC Title Run

Eight; the number of AMCC titles the Behrend Women’s Soccer team has won in a row. Four, the number of college athletes in the Whipple family. Parents Lynn and Bryan Whipple have four children, and three of them are/were college athletes. Father Bryan was a Division II baseball player at Clarion University, while oldest sister Ashlyn plays soccer here at Behrend. Madi is a former soccer player at Behrend who is now a student at Slippery Rock University. Youngest daughter Camryn is committed to play lacrosse at Slippery Rock beginning in 2020. The lone son Nolan has been shown the way to playing college athletics by his three older sisters, and Nolan with the help of his dad will hopefully play college baseball in the near future.

This piece will focus on the outstanding career of Ashlyn Whipple, a truly compassionate and unselfish young woman whose soccer style represents her personality. The Whipple family resides in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania in suburban Pittsburgh. Ashlyn is a 2016 graduate of Canon-McMillan High School where she helped lead the soccer team to a state runner up finish in 2014. In her soccer career, she was named All-Section and All-WPIAL while also winning three varsity letters in the sport. Whipple is a center midfielder who distributes the ball to her teammates to score and also shoots long range shots from outside the 18 yard box off deflections or kick outs.

Her job is one of the most important on the field as she is asked to feed her teammates for scoring opportunities and also clearing the ball out of harms ways on defense. Her position in soccer shares some common characteristics with her academic interest in nursing. Whipple chose nursing because she enjoys the aspect of helping people. Nursing is the ultimate unselfish career because it is a field geared towards the betterment and development of others. Much like a center midfielder, nurses take care of other first and get rewarded last when the job is done.

Whipple began her career in soccer later than most college soccer players at the age of 10. “I played a variety of sports growing up, but soccer was one that came more natural to me and I had the most fun with.” Whipple explained. By age 11, Whipple began to focus on the sport full time and began her career in travel and cup soccer. She played for a few different travel organizations in late elementary and middle school which helped develop her skills more and become a better player. By high school, she began to focus her attention on playing for the high school and making the team.

Her play in high school and her leadership as captain helped her receive some attention from Penn State Behrend which was a perfect fit because the school had a nursing program with many athletes already. It was a last minute opportunity to play soccer, but she could not imagine her college career without playing. “Behrend offered the chance to study a program I was interested in while also competing at a high level. It was also a perfect distance from home which was an added bonus to me.”

So far in her college career, Whipple has been a part of three AMCC titles and three NCAA appearances. She has also won three letters so far while also being inducted into the National College Athlete Honor Society this past week. She has racked up five goals and eight assists in her career, but her true presence in the middle of the field is not something that always shows up on the box score. However, the points Whipple has accumulated have been some of the biggest points the team needed over the last few seasons. She had a game winning goal to clinch the top seed in the AMCC this past season, while in her sophomore season, she won the AMCC semi-final game with a game winning penalty kick to send the Lions back to the AMCC title game for the seventh straight season. With one final season, Whipple is hopeful the Lions make it nine straight conference titles while adding an NCAA tournament win.

While soccer has presented a lot of work and a lot of time commitment, Ashlyn has made lifelong friendships in the sport at Behrend. The current Behrend soccers junior class all share extremely outgoing personalities. “Our older teammates at first were not sure how to take us. We take the game serious, but we have the most fun we can while doing it. I feel like our class brought a great dynamic to the program.” In addition to her soccer teammates, Ashlyn listed fellow Behrend athlete Gabriella Loeffler as her go to person in the nursing program. Each one of them have strict schedules, and they have spent a lot of time studying together in order to succeed in their program. While Ashlyn has a close bond with many at Behrend, she listed her family as her biggest support system. “My parents come to every single game. My dad takes pictures and shares them with everyone on our team. Their support of me and my siblings always means the most to me” Ashlyn’s boyfriend Lewis Lippl is another individual who has provided great support for her even though the couple has extremely different schedules and academic interests. They are a couple who compliment each other well.

Ashlyn plans to return home to the Pittsburgh area upon graduation in the spring of 2020. She has gained valuable experience as a nurses aid in a surgical hospital and will be adding to that experience this summer as she begins an externship at Washington Hospital which will provide her experience in the emergency room, the mother baby unit, and also in pediatrics. With a little over one full school year of college remaining, Whipple has a lot of goals in mind. With a strong work ethic, a great support system, and experience in the field of nursing, Ashlyn Whipple is set for a strong future.