Emilie and Brynn Gardner have spent 4,468 minutes on the field of DI soccer stadiums around the nation, including Bowling Green’s own Cochrane Stadium. 2,157 of those have been together on the field at the same time.
Although the two sisters play on opposite sides of the formation, Emilie leading the team in minutes as a defender in 2023 and Brynn leading in points at the striker position, both players are closer than they have ever been thanks to their shared success.
“It’s been nothing but great so far,” Emilie said about her time spent with Brynn at BG. “We’ve just gotten to grow our relationship both as sisters and as teammates. You can’t really describe it because it’s unique, and I’ve been loving it so far.”
Both sisters saw immense success at Anthony Wayne High School in Whitehouse, OH, where Emilie was named NLL co-Player of the Year and the District Player of the Year in 2019, and Brynn was the first player in AWHS history to be named a United Soccer Coaches All American in 2021.
Many of their accomplishments are credited to BGSU alum Lori Williams, the sister’s varsity head coach, who had a huge impact on their development on and off the field.
“She was a great head coach, and she provided us with a lot of leadership tools that I think we carried into the collegiate level, as well as the girls around us,” Emilie said. A lot of them are playing at Findlay and Toledo and schools around here, so it’s really cool that we got to play with them.
In Brynn’s time under Williams at Anthony Wayne, the team had a 67-8-10 record and won the district championship in all four years while reaching the state semifinals in three of those four.
“Lori created a championship culture, so that really set us up for success coming into Bowling Green,” Brynn said. “To be a part of a culture like that, it was really great.”
Staying local has its benefits, as the Gardner sisters have learned after they chose a university that’s only a 30-minute drive from Anthony Wayne, and after their accomplishments at both the high school and college levels in northwest Ohio, Emilie and Brynn are faced with a dose of local stardom.
“It brings a sense of pride, a sense of community to be someone to look up to in those younger years of elementary and middle school,” Emilie said when asked about what it means to be a positive influence in the local community. “It’s cool to be a role model, in a sense, for those younger girls that potentially want to be here one day.”
Because BG is local for the Gardners, they still have support from their childhood friends and high school classmates, who have seen them play since day one.
“A lot of the peers we went to Anthony Wayne with stay local and go to BG, so they’ll come to our games or text and say ‘good job’, and it’s cool that we still have that sense of community,” Brynn said.
Brynn and Emilie’s parents, Brian and Angela, received a lot of credit for how their daughter’s careers have turned out to this point, and both sisters believe that without their support, they wouldn’t be where they are today.
“They’ve always just supported us and our decisions,” Brynn said about their parents. “They brought us into travel and all the opportunities to play at high-level clubs when we were young and took us to tournaments every weekend, so we owe a lot to them.
Having someone else there to compete with all the time has helped the pair in their career, and they take their competitive nature against each other and apply it on the field, especially at Cochrane Stadium.
“It gives you someone in the offseason like if we have to go do a workout, you don’t have to do it alone,” Emilie said. “It holds you accountable, as a workout partner and as a player.”
As Emilie finishes up her fifth and final year with the Falcons and Brynn looks to have a big junior season, both sisters will have a lasting impact on the BG community, and their names will surely be heard around Cochrane Stadium for many years to come.
