Huntington Valley, Pa. native Erica (Walsh) Dambach collected career win No. 300 last week with Penn State's 2-1 victory over West Virginia.
The Nittany Lions, ranked eighth nationally, earned the victory with an 85th minute game-winner from Kaitlyn MacBean. It followed an 8-0 win over West Chester and a scoreless draw with North Carolina to start the 2023 campaign.
Dambach, a 21-year veteran head coach, brought her individual record to 300-118-29 and 260-89-22 since assuming the top job at Penn State in 2007. She has led Nittany Lions teams to 16 consecutive NCAA Tournament bids, 11 Big Ten regular season championships, five Big Ten Tournament championships, two NCAA Women's College Cup berths and the 2015 NCAA Championship.
The Lower Moreland High School grad - who played on the boys team in high school because the school didn't have a girls team - is the winningest women's soccer coach in Big Ten Conference history with a 0.728 career winning percentage.
Prior to coaching at Penn State, Dambach was a head coach at Harvard and Dartmouth and was an assistant with the United States Women's National Team and coach of the U.S. youth national teams. She started her career as an assistant at Bucknell and was a grad assistant at Lehigh in 2003-2004 and an assistant coach at Florida State in 2005.
Photo credit: Penn State Athletics