Tumolo’s impromptu decorating job sums her up pretty well: impulsive, creative, colorful and hard to miss. The Syracuse senior has taken a bucket of bright orange paint to the attack position and splashed it all over the place. After carrying the Orange within two goals of its first national championship, Tumolo is a big reason why Syracuse came into this season ranked No. 2 nationally by Lacrosse Magazine. “It’s going to be a fun year,” Orange coach Gary Gait said. “It’s going to be very exciting for the fans to watch.” As a junior, Tumolo was named a
Tewaaraton Award finalist and a first- team All-American. She won IWLCA Attacker of the Year honors and strapped Syracuse to her back in comeback wins over North Carolina and Florida en route to the NCAA championship game. “She’s one of the most exciting players in the women’s game right now,” said Katrina Dowd, the former Syracuse
C
learview Regional is not Moorestown or Shawnee, the well-established high school girls’ lacrosse powerhouses of
New Jersey. The Pioneers played their first season in 2005. That summer, Tumolo was a rising high school freshman and one of a few dozen girls at a Clearview camp, trying lacrosse for the very first time. Coach Megan Conklin, a former All-American and national champion in both lacrosse and field hockey at TCNJ, knew she had a special kid on her hands.
“The first thing we did was partner passing. And she picked up the stick and started passing like she’s been playing for years. I looked at [assistant] Kevin Pedrick and said, ‘This girl is going to be amazing,’” Conklin said. “The second she walked onto the field, I knew.” Tumolo was a dedicated soccer player before she wandered into Conklin’s orbit; the coach encouraged her to try out for
and cursed with size 9-and-1/2-size feet that she trips over a lot. “I’m more creative with my hands than with my feet,” she said. Tumolo prefers feeding to dodging, but she can go 1-on-1 when necessary, on both sides of the ball. She led Syracuse in caused turnovers (16) in 2012.
In high school, Tumolo and teammate Jess Loizeaux would stay after practice and laugh themselves silly trying to do backbreakers and around-the-world passes. Eventually, Tumolo’s crazy moves morphed into a game that was unlike anyone else’s.
“She had this amazing vision, where she could dodge and look inside at the same time. She just makes these amazing shots,” said Loizeaux, now a sophomore attacker at Virginia. “She can jump around the net, shoot behind the back and rip the corners.” When it came time for college,
Tumolo gravitated toward Syracuse for Gait’s coaching style, which encouraged experimentation. Twenty-five years ago, Gait was the one setting the Carrier Dome ablaze, becoming the most decorated player in the history of the men’s game.
Tumolo’s impromptu decorating of her bedroom sums her up well: impulsive, creative, colorful and hard to miss.
assistant and Tumolo’s former sparring partner on the U.S. training team. As a senior, Tumolo said, she doesn’t care anymore about stats and individual awards. She just wants an NCAA championship the way a starving person wants food.
“On the field, I just want to be the best player I can be for my coaches, for my family, for my teammates, for my fans,” she said. “Because it is my last year.”
64 LACROSSE MAGAZINE March 2013 >>
elite lacrosse clubs and tournaments. Tumolo played for the All-American Showcase team after her sophomore season, wearing a pair of highlighter- yellow cleats that she bought just for the tournament.
After the event, Conklin’s phone lit up with calls about the golden girl in the neon shoes. “You could tell immediately that she’s a superstar,” Conklin said. Tumolo is small (5-foot-3) but lightning fast. She is blessed with huge hands that make her slick stick work possible,
“The style of play she played is the way I like to teach,” Gait said of Tumolo. Gait encouraged Tumolo to try out for the U.S. national team. She made the roster for the first time in 2010. At the time, she had been playing lacrosse for all of five years. She narrowly missed making the 2013 World Cup team. Aside from her physical ability, Tumolo packs a powerful emotional punch on the field. Syracuse’s players are an expressive and passionate bunch, their pre- and post-game speeches often soaked in I-love-you-man tears. The third of five children — younger sister Kim is a freshman attacker at Wagner — Tumolo is a genuine extrovert who loves being a part of a big team. “Michelle definitely has confidence and swagger and field vision,” Dowd said. “She loves lacrosse so much, and she loves Syracuse so much, that she wants to give it her all. That’s just the way she’s wound.”
For a team chasing its first NCAA title, that kind of energy can be invaluable.
“When everything’s going well for Syracuse, she is a monster who’s unstoppable,” Virginia coach Julie Myers said. “If she’s feeling good and riding a wave, her team rallies around her.”
A Publication of US Lacrosse
©MICHAEL SAHADI
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