For Loyola University midfielder Jillian Wilson, the circumstances of her final year of college could not be better. Lacrosse practice, workouts and games are in person. School — a one-year MBA program offered by Loyola — is entirely online. “It’s been awesome,” she said recently, while not sitting in a classroom.

After earning a marketing degree with a minor in communications last year, she’s left the typical undergraduate athlete life — which includes a few classes each weekday, followed by practice, dinner and homework — behind. She has some more time than she used to. Yet Wilson, a Hampstead native and likely soon-to-be two-time Patriot League midfielder of the year, has been able to play another year of lacrosse at the school that feels like “exactly where I’m supposed to be,” she said.

With more flexibility and a proverbial foot in the real world as a graduate student, she’s used some of her extra time to network with local professionals working in commercial real estate, the field in which she wants to pursue a career. “It’s allowed me to do all those different things,” Wilson said of her grad year, “and to be very present, be where my feet are, spend time with the girls on the team, and really be in college for a last year before I step off into the professional world.”

It’s also benefited the Loyola women’s team, which is ranked ninth nationally. The Greyhounds have a 14-2 record with a prolific offense that includes Wilson’s 45 goals and 15 assists and, probably more important, her 9.69 draw controls per game, second-best in the nation. Her skill on the circle has given Loyola plenty of extra possessions to score. Wilson ranks only behind another graduate student, Duke’s Maddie Jenner (McDonogh), in draw wins per game.

The graduate student-athlete isn’t a brand-new concept or groundbreaking idea in college athletics (it has been used almost like the other end of a redshirt year), but their prevalence and influence around college sports has been a new trend since the pandemic-shortened 2020 spring season. After it, the NCAA granted all affected athletes an extra year of eligibility, an entirely fair decision that is still being felt by later recruiting classes.

The significance of Wilson’s story is that she’s far from the only “fifth year” — playing with the benefit of another year of physical development and maturity — influencing the competition and getting a nice head start on the real world if they or their families can afford the graduate school tuition. (In lacrosse, full athletic scholarships are extremely rare.) Look around college sports rosters, including the top men’s and women’s lacrosse programs locally, and the once-scarce class designation “Gr.” is common.

Johns Hopkins attackman Garrett Degnon is the Blue Jays leading scorer with 34 goals. He’s a graduate student, enrolled in a master’s program in finance and recently turned 23 years old. His fifth-year eligibility and that of three other teammates has boosted Johns Hopkins’ depth in what has been the best season the No. 5 Blue Jays (11-4, 4-1 Big Ten) have had under third-year coach Peter Milliman.

“No one obviously saw COVID coming, but I guess it did bring one or two good things out of all the bad,” said Degnon (DeMatha), who wants to be a financial adviser. “The chance to go to a grad school at Hopkins is something I never even thought I was capable of doing and then playing another year and playing the sport that I love with the teammates that I love. I’m really grateful for how it all played out.”

The top-ranked Notre Dame men’s team has seven grad students, including midfielder Jack Simmons (McDonogh), compared to three at the start of the 2020 season. Second-ranked Duke, which boasts one of the more widely-renowned business schools in the country, has 13, including defensive midfielder Garrett Leadmon (DeMatha). That’s the most of any Division I men’s team ranked in the Top 5 right now and 10 more than the Blue Devils had on the roster in 2020. Third-ranked Virginia has six grad players and No. 4 Penn State five.

The permutations of the Ivy League make things even a little weirder. Because the league doesn’t formally allow grad-year players (aside from a one-year exemption they gave seniors in 2021), smart kids like Yale’s Matt Brandau (Boys’ Latin) and four other teammates took the fall 2022 semesters off from school to preserve their athletic eligibility to play a de facto fifth season. In the case of Brandau, that’ll be in 2024.

Then throw the NCAA’s relatively new transfer portal into the mix and you get another layer of influence and opportunity, where those with an extra year of eligibility can decide to play for maybe a more competitive and welcoming program that aligns with their post-collegiate goals, or even find a way to switch sports.

Take your pick of examples. The presently top-ranked Northwestern women nabbed grad student attacker Hailey Rhatigan, who led Mercer in scoring last year. She’s scored 46 goals, trailing only Tewaaraton Award candidate, Izzy Scane, (another grad student) for the team-high. Then there’s Virginia grad student midfielder Ricky Miezan. He was a four-year member of the Stanford football team starting in 2018, and a starting inside linebacker the last two years before he transferred to Virginia and joined the lacrosse team. He missed the sport.

When the North Carolina men’s team came to Homewood Field to play Johns Hopkins in a nonconference game in February, it brought with it 10 grad students and six grad transfers among them, including its top scorer Logan McGovern, who played the previous four years at Bryant. After the Tar Heels beat the Blue Jays in a result that will have implications for NCAA tournament selection and seeding, North Carolina coach Joe Breschi (Loyola-Blakefield) spoke about how the experience on the roster gave his team an edge in the early season.

The rise of the fifth years is a hugely important but under-the-radar narrative around this season. It’s not as simple as saying older players are more experienced and give certain teams an edge. But when I talked to a few of these young old-timers recently, they each in their way, 1) seemed one joke away from referring to themselves as being on an extended college stay that might make for the plot of a comedy movie, but they also 2) acknowledged the value of the NCAA’s decision on their futures — and their teams, too.

“It’s definitely been unique, and weird,” Degnon said. “If a freshman is playing, they can be going up against a 24-year-old, which is a little crazy. But then on the flip side of that, as a 24-year-old or 23-year-old having been through so much college lacrosse, you have a lot of experience and teaching ability to kind of spread to the younger guys. There are some weird negatives about it, but there’s a lot of positives in it, too.”

And the story isn’t over yet, with another year to run. One sign is another new wrinkle in college lacrosse: Seniors — who were freshmen during the onset of the pandemic — announcing that they are coming back for another season in 2024. Earlier this month, the nationally ranked Maryland women’s program said that its current five senior starters — midfielder Shaylan Ahearn (Glenelg), defender Brianna Lamoureux, Hannah Leubecker (Forest Hill), attacker Libby May (Hereford), and goalie Emily Sterling (John Carroll) — will use their extra year of athletic eligibility and return to College Park and play and go to school next spring. Who can blame them?

“The way I look at it is there’s only upside,” Degnon said. “You can maybe get smack-talked for being a little bit older and still playing college sports, but to further your education and play lacrosse? I know for damn sure I’m going to miss playing. I was a little worn out and tired at the end of last year and then two weeks later I was like, ‘I miss playing. I’m making the right decision.’ Ten years from now, I’m definitely going to be happy I played.”

Games to watch

After each losing a game to end the regular season last week, the Maryland men and women will host Big Ten tournament quarterfinals this weekend.

The No. 8 Maryland men (8-4, 3-2 Big Ten), who slipped to the third seed in the conference after losing to rival Johns Hopkins, host No. 16 and sixth-seeded Rutgers (8-5, 1-4) at 8 p.m. Saturday. The game will air live on Big Ten Network.

Just before that, also in College Park, the No. 12 Maryland women (12-5, 4-2 Big Ten) will host Ohio State (5-11, 0-6) at 4:30 p.m. A Terps loss would be a big upset, but the Buckeyes will be motivated in part by the chance to play in more Big Ten tournament games on their home turf, as Ohio State hosts the Big Ten semifinals and final next week.

The No. 16 Johns Hopkins women (8-7, 4-2 Big Ten) host Rutgers (7-8, 1-5) at 1 p.m. Saturday at Homewood Field in a Big Ten tournament quarterfinal. The winner faces the winner of the Maryland-Ohio State quarterfinal on May 4, meaning the Blue Jays and Terps could play a rematch of their one-goal regular season contest won by Maryland, 13-12.

End lines

Bracketology prognosticators, like those at national publications USA Lacrosse Magazine and Inside Lacrosse, have been busy putting out their latest updates projecting the postseason fields. Selection Sunday is May 7, after the conference tournaments end.

I recommend reading their work for more detail, and you can find the latest RPI rankings updates (modeling what the NCAA selection committees use) for Division I men and women at lacrossereference.com.

The consensus at the moment among local teams most notably includes:

• If neither the No. 5 Johns Hopkins men (11-4, 4-1 Big Ten) nor Maryland men win the Big Ten tournament and get the NCAA automatic qualifying bid that comes with it, they are both in line for at-large berths and potentially first-round home games.
• The Loyola men (7-7, 4-4 Patriot League), who faced Lehigh on Friday night with conference tournament implications at stake, will need to win the league AQ to get in. The same goes for Towson (5-8, 4-2) in the CAA, where No. 15 Delaware (10-3, 6-0) is the favorite.
• The No. 9 Loyola women (15-2, 9-0 Patriot) — with a win over Johns Hopkins and a close loss to top-5 Syracuse — should be in even if they don’t win the Patriot League, assuming they at least make it to the league title game.
• Even with five losses and a probable at-large bid attached to their future, the Maryland women are on the edge of hosting a first-round home game, given their strength of schedule.
• The Johns Hopkins women are set up well for an at-large bid and a good Big Ten tournament run would help their NCAA tournament positioning.

Corey McLaughlin is a veteran writer and editor who has covered sports in Baltimore for a decade, including for Baltimore magazine, USA Lacrosse Magazine and several other publications.