COLLEGE PREVIEW 2014 NCAA DIVISION I WOMEN’S PRESEASON PLAYER OF YEAR
Whatever It Takes
By Clare Lochary A
lyssa Murray got a very early start in lacrosse. Her father, Ray Murray, played at Adelphi and won an NCAA Division II championship with the Panthers in 1979. Thus it fell to him to help organize the first youth girls’ lacrosse program in West Babylon, N.Y., when his older daughter Corinne was in fourth grade.
Alyssa, then a kindergartener, worshipped her big sister and her teammates.
and 40 assists last season, propelling the Orange to the NCAA final four and earning her a nod as a Tewaaraton Award finalist. Heading into 2014, she is the Lacrosse Magazine Preseason Player of the Year — and as excited for her final NCAA season as she was to play with those fourth-graders. “I honestly have tried not to talk about [the season] because I’m so excited for it,” Murray said. “We’re all thrilled that we have the opportunity to go back.”
“I’m not personally the flashiest player, but I try different things and do what works for me. That’s how you find your success.”
— Alyssa Murray
“I just wanted to do what the older girls were doing,” she said. “I basically idolized them.” Luckily for Murray, she got the sports equivalent of a battlefield promotion during that first season, when the roster was too thin to field an entire team for the first six games.
“I was just there all the time, so my dad said, ‘You might as well go and stand there on attack,’” she said. These days, Murray does a lot more than just stand there on attack. She is the finest player in the game, one who can prowl the crease, find cutters and go to goal with equal ease. The senior attacker led Syracuse with 104 points
48 LACROSSE MAGAZINE February 2014 >> Murray thrives in Syracuse coach
Gary Gait’s loose, creative system, and it’s made her into a versatile player. She can find chemistry with almost anyone on the field.
When star attacker Michelle Tumolo went down with a torn ACL midway through the last season, freshman Kayla Treanor joined the starting lineup, and Syracuse’s offensive production actually went up slightly (from 14.6 to 15.3 goals per game). Murray was the consistent factor.
Murray wants to diversify things even more this season. “The chemistry between me and Treanor will always be there,” she said. “We want to focus on
multiple scoring threats, so it’s not just the left side of the field.” External changes are afoot for 2014 as well. It will be Syracuse’s first year in the super-ultra-mega-conference that is the ACC, and across the country, attackers are nervous about a new rule that allows defenders in the crease. Murray believes she can turn that seeming defensive advantage into a liability by running opponents off her shoulder when they overplay her. “I’m not personally the flashiest player
but I try different things and do what works for me,” she said. “That’s how you find your success.” It’s necessary to have a lot of weapons in your arsenal, and to make sure your game is constantly evolving, when you’re every opponent’s top priority. “Any time a team is going to play against Syracuse, their first concern is No. 1 out there on the field,” Hofstra coach Shannon Smith said. “She’s gained that respect from every coach and defender.” Even without a scouting report, Smith knows Murray better than most NCAA coaches. Their high school careers at Long Island’s West Babylon overlapped. Smith, New York’s all-time leader with 505 career goals, estimated that Murray assisted about 80 percent of
Murray’s inventive attacking style yielded 104 points — fourth-most in Division I — and carried Syracuse back to the NCAA final four.
Syracuse’s Alyssa Murray can adapt to anything — with the exception of leaving college empty-handed
A Publication of US Lacrosse
©GREG WALL
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