The Central Bucks West girls basketball team won the District One 6A title in 2020.
And had there been a District One Mike Rowe Award for Getting Dirty, then Bucks junior Paige Gilbert would have won it in a landslide. The first team All-SOL player graduated as West’s unofficial career leader in charges taken.
“I wasn’t a 3-point scorer. I was a rebounder and I took charges. I was doing the dirty work,” Gilbert explained, “which translated a lot to lacrosse. When the ball is on the ground, it is free. It is someone’s. I will try my best to get there first.”
Gilbert was West’s leading scorer in the district title game, but many pundits credit her first half defensive shut down of Pennsbury star and Maryland-bound Ava Sciolla for cementing the title win.
Although hoops probably earned Gilbert more ink, she stood out in lacrosse – despite not playing club until the summer before her junior year. This spring, the William & Mary junior midfielder earned second team All-Coastal Athletic Association honors.
Her 53 draw controls ranked as the eighth best single season in Tribe history. Gilbert’s basketball background helped her in the circle.
Gilbert got pointers from an injured teammate with an affinity for winning draws, Caroline Hertzberg. “I took the draw in high school but being on the circle and getting the draw controls were way different from something I had done before,” Gilbert shared. “It was all about hustling. It is three seconds to run as fast as you can and try to beat the other girl there.
“I think basketball helped a tremendous amount,” Gilbert continued. “The hustling and the energy that basketball creates translates a lot to lacrosse. If all five parts in basketball are moving correctly and doing their job, then you will be successful every possession. It is the same with lacrosse. When all seven attackers are on the same page, it is so fluid and so easy that we’ll score almost every time.”
But winning the draw is wasted unless a team can convert it into a goal, and Gilbert did that 34 times this year to lead the Tribe. She scored multiple goals in 10 of William & Mary’s 17 games.
After a difficult freshman year in the win-loss column, William & Mary improved to 8-8 in Gilbert’s sophomore year while making noise in the highly competitive CAA.
“We realized that we could be really good if we put in the work to get there. And then we went through a lot of injuries last year so I had to step up in the draw circle,” Gilbert remembered. “Our leading scorer from last year graduated and someone had to step up.”
Gilbert started and scored a goal in her first college game, a 14-13 win over Villanova. She had her first of six career hat tricks on April 7, 2023 against Towson. This past March 2, in a 19-12 win over East Carolina, Gilbert found the back of the net six times; three weeks later, she repeated the six-pack against Monmouth. It was the third highest single game total in the CAA this season.
A Commissioner’s Academic Honor Roll member, Gilbert also totaled 21 ground balls and five caused turnovers. She has started W&M’s last 33 games.
Gilbert was one of four players on the Philadelphia STEPS club team to commit to William & Mary, which she did in the fall of 2019. The early commitment provided enormous piece of mind when Gilbert’s junior lacrosse season was canceled due to the COVID pandemic.
William & Mary’s “campus was just gorgeous,” Gilbert recalled. “It was fall and the leaves were beautiful. I never wanted to go to a city; the town and Colonial Williamsburg were so nice. From an academic standpoint, it is considered a Public Ivy.” William & Mary, the alma mater of Thomas Jefferson and two other U.S. presidents, predates all but one Ivy League school.
Five years after that initial visit, Gilbert is turning her attention to finishing her collegiate career strong. “I’m really excited for my senior year. I think it is very important to lead by example,” Gilbert explained, “because if people see me working hard, they will want to work hard.
“The seniors have been texting the incoming freshmen and telling them how to get ready for college lacrosse, because it’s really such a different game from high school,” she continued.
“We’re making sure that everyone is coming in from the offseason ready to go. All of our freshmen and sophomores from last year have a year under their belts. They are experienced and have been working hard this summer. We can be successful,” Gilbert concluded, “because we do have so much talent.”
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