DiNardo Embraces Larger Role in Second Year

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Many of the world’s best women’s lacrosse players convened to train together in November. As part of the group, University of Virginia sophomore Jenna DiNardo found herself star-struck.

Of the 44 players invited to Florida for a U.S. Women’s Senior National Team training camp, DiNardo was the only one without at least two seasons of Division I experience. Most were college graduates.

“If there’s a college player there, they’re typically more of an upperclassman,” said UVA assistant coach Caylee Waters, a national-team veteran who starred in goal at North Carolina. “So it was really cool.”

Everywhere DiNardo looked were players she’d grown up idolizing, former Boston College great Charlotte North among them.

“That was actually surreal, to be honest,” recalled DiNardo, who won’t turn 20 until September. “I couldn’t believe that I was involved in that group of people, just because they’re all so much older. They were literally the girls that I just looked up to so much when I was watching lacrosse, so I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness.’

“I was very nervous, but excited. It was super fun. I definitely have never experienced anything like that.”

For DiNardo, who’s from Corning, N.Y., about 100 miles southeast of Rochester, it helped that her teammates at the U.S. camp included Waters. DiNardo is an attacker, and so she doesn’t work closely with Waters on the field in Charlottesville, but they had an opportunity to bond in Florida.

“It was really sweet to be teammates with her, because I see how good of a teammate she is and how she always keeps her head up,” said Waters, who helped Team USA win the gold medal at the 2022 World Cup. “She always believes in her teammates and she totally embraces every situation.”

To her other teammates at the U.S. training camp, DiNardo was known as Jenna. Waters calls her Dino.

“In typical Dino fashion, she was herself,” Waters said. “That’s what I love seeing. She may have been intimidated on the inside or whatever, but she handled herself so well. She seamlessly fit in and was able to show off her skills and her talent and just be a good teammate and be herself.

“She was a first-year last year at UVA and got a ton of playing time and scored big goals for us, and I just loved being able to share that with her. We were both sharing the field in the same uniform and just embracing that moment together and seeing how she can show off her skill set on any field with any teammates.”

The Wahoos’ second season under head coach Sonia LaMonica starts Friday. At 4 p.m., No. 9 UVA hosts Liberty at Klöckner Stadium.

In 2024, when she made the ACC’s all-freshman team, DiNardo totaled 50 points, on 39 goals and 11 assists. She was part of a prolific offense that also featured such standouts as Morgan Schwab (81 points), Katia Carnevale (66 points), Mackenzie Hoeg (53 points) and Kiki Shaw (43 points).

All four of those players exhausted their eligibility at season’s end, and the Hoos will ask more of DiNardo this spring, LaMonica said.

“Ultimately, you lean on your experienced players to step up in the big moments,” LaMonica said Wednesday. “That will now become the roles of players like Jenna DiNardo. While they’re young, I think it will be exciting to see them in those situations and how they’re able to respond.

“I think they’re going to rise up. I really do. The chemistry between them, particularly that attack unit, is very strong, even though they’re all still rather young.”

DiNardo said she’s “taken more of a veteran role this year like. Last year I was definitely a rookie. Now I feel like my voice is a little bit more heard or listened to. Not that it wasn’t, but we did have so many veterans that I would just sit back and listen to what they had to say. I feel like now I’m kind of taking more of that leadership role.

“It’s sad not having the seniors we had last year, but I’m super excited for what we have to come.”

Growing up in Corning, DiNardo also played volleyball and basketball, but lacrosse was her favorite sport. That’s a family tradition. Her father played lax at Hofstra and her sister at Youngstown State. DiNardo also has a brother, and he’s headed to Loyola (Md.) to play lacrosse.

DiNardo made the varsity lacrosse team at Corned-Painted Post High School as an eighth-grader and recorded 98 goals and 54 assists as a senior. By then, she’d been committed to UVA for more than a year.

“As soon as I visited, I was like, ‘This is where I want to be,’ ” DiNardo recalled.

When she signed her letter of intent, in November 2022, DiNardo expected to play for longtime head coach Julie Myers at UVA. Myers stepped down in June 2023, however, and LaMonica took over the next month. DiNardo and her classmates arrived on Grounds later that summer and embraced the vision of LaMonica and her assistants: husband Mike LaMonica, Kerrigan Miller and Waters.

“It was scary at first,” DiNardo said, “but then once we got going I loved them and I love how they run everything.”

The Hoos finished 15-5 last season after losing to Florida in the NCAA tournament’s second round. Knowing that the college careers of the team’s seniors ended that day made the defeat especially painful, DiNardo said.

“You never really wanna feel that again, because it is so sad,” she said. “I’ll never play with those girls again and I loved playing with them. I think going forward I will play more for them, and once I get to my senior year I’d hope the underclassmen will want to do the same for me. It’s emotional, because you feel like you could have done so much more to prevent that from happening. I felt bad, like I should have finished on more shots, should have done this, done that.”

In the ACC preseason poll, Virginia was picked to finish third this spring. Even with their losses to graduation, the Cavaliers have back a strong core from last year’s team, including DiNardo, Kate Miller, Kate Galica, Madison Alaimo, Olivia Bruno, Kate Demark, Nicole Cruthirds and goalie Mel Josephson.

Galica was the ACC Freshman of the Year last season.

“I’d say we still have so much talent,” DiNardo said, “and it’s only gonna get better, especially with our coaching staff. They just push us every day to be the best versions of ourselves on and off the field.”

DiNardo figures to be a focal point of opposing defenses this spring, “but I just look at it as a challenge,” she said, “and I like challenges.”

The process of choosing the team that will represent the United States at the 2026 World Cup continues. Even if DiNardo doesn’t make the team, she’ll be better for having trained with such high-level players, Sonia LaMonica said.

“That arena definitely builds the confidence, no question,” LaMonica said. “You’re around great players, and you learn a lot when you’re surrounded by such talent, skill and experience. I think that just naturally, whether you make the cut, whether you don’t, the experience is going to certainly take you to another level.”

Waters agreed.

“It’s very high-level, so it challenged her and she met that challenge, so I hope she knows she can do anything out there,” Waters said. “I hope it just continues to help her believe that she can make the team, that she’ll be a huge difference for the UVA squad, and that she can play many roles.

“I think that’s what I love about her. Dino doesn’t have to be the star on the offense. She works hard and gets the job done and she’s there for her teammates.”

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