Three UNC women's lacrosse players preparing to step up

Every day at practice, freshman midfielders Kara Cannizzaro, Emily Garrity and Jessica Griffin help lug the team’s goal cages to and from Navy Field. Although this sort of chore is one asked of rookie lacrosse players everywhere, these freshmen are there for more than just grunt work.

With the imminent departure of All-ACC senior midfielders Megan Bosica and Jenn Russell, coach Jenny Levy’s high-energy newcomers are putting in what she likes to call “mental minutes” in preparation for the more prominent roles they will take on next season.

If all goes according to plan, they won’t be carrying cages anymore — they’ll be carrying the team.

There’s no doubt these freshmen have big shoes to fill. Bosica and Russell are both captains along with fellow senior attacker Kristen Taylor and were named third and first team All-America, respectively, last season.

What’s more, they are winners, having presided over some of the most successful seasons in the program’s 14-year history, including last year’s run to the program’s first ever national championship game. But if anyone is equipped to take the reins, it’s this trio of Under Armour All-Americans.

“We do a really good job in our recruiting process of finding top talent,” Levy said. “We’re really confident in what we do.”

That confidence is shared by the players themselves. All three described themselves as having strong personalities, and they share an intensely competitive nature that drew Levy’s attention while they were in high school.

Sometimes, however, this competitiveness can cause problems, as it did during the team’s distance runs at fall practice. When Cannizzaro and Griffin, both of whom ran cross country in high school, would consistently finish near the front of the pack during the first week of practice, Garrity became increasingly frustrated.

“‘All those guys who ran cross country, they have an edge,’” Levy recalled Garrity telling her after practice one day. “‘I don’t know how to do what they’re doing right now on the cross country course.’”

Where a lesser competitor might have seen her teammates’ prior experience as an excuse to give up, Garrity instead saw room for improvement. By November, she had won her first distance contest.

“There’s only so many spots on the field, so everyone pushes each other every single day,” Garrity said. “We’re also very encouraging. We’re very supportive of each other, so when someone does well, everyone’s happy for them.”

For a group of hyper-competitive athletes struggling for playing time, the three are remarkably close friends off the field. Cannizzaro and Griffin live together in a room they’ve dubbed “the Lax Pad” in reference to its lacrosse-themed decor. There, Garrity is a frequent visitor for “Friends” marathons and “Grey’s Anatomy” nights.

When the trio went out to dinner with the rest of the team’s freshmen a few weeks ago, their laughter drew stares from other customers.

“We’re kind of weird,” Griffin said. “We’re fun, though.”

Although the laughs are occasionally broken up by the sorts of arguments you’d expect from a group of women who are constantly in competition, they said things always turn out all right in the end.

“Sometimes we’ll get a little mad, and there’ll be a little pushing and then a little yelling at each other,” Cannizzaro added. “But then we walk away and cool down, and we’re good.”

They also spend a good deal of time around the team’s seniors, who have taken an interest in preparing their future replacements for their eventual departure. More than anything else, Levy said she hopes her seniors will be able to pass down their work ethic to the next generation.

“Jenn Russell, Kristen Taylor and ‘Cookie’ Carr — every day they’re physically and mentally focused, prepared and competing at a really high level and demanding that of others,” Levy said.

The veterans have helped their protégées adjust to college life off the field as well. From the day the freshmen arrived on campus, the seniors have welcomed them with open arms — offering everything from car rides to advice on which classes to take.

“They’re great people, and they’re a great addition to our team,” Russell said. “We’re happy that they came here.”

So far, the freshmen have validated Russell’s praise. Garrity, a highly-touted recruit from Rutledge, Pa., has parlayed superb lacrosse instincts into a spot in the starting lineup. Although she has not been expected to score given the potency of the offensive weapons surrounding her, Garrity has still managed to find the back of the net 12 times in 11 games.

“Some of the stuff that she naturally does is something that some kids never learn in four years,” Levy said.

Both Cannizzaro and Griffin have received significant playing time off the bench this season. Cannizzaro has been commended by Levy for her scrappy play and leads the team with 12 caused turnovers.

Griffin’s game is the least polished of the three, in part due to the relatively little amount of coaching she received in her hometown of Sudbury, Mass. But her size, speed and strength offer her an opportunity to make up this ground rather quickly.

In practice, she has tied junior attacker Corey Donohoe for the highest eight-meter shooting percentage on the team, a feat Levy said she has never seen before from a freshman.

“Athletically, she’s just a freak of nature,” Levy said. “She moves, she’s big, she’s strong.”

But there’s work yet to be done. Russell said the freshmen are still adjusting to playing defense at the college level, where the opposition is stronger and faster than the players they took on in high school. Levy wants them to get better at moving the ball through the air instead of trying to run past defenders.

“We’re trying to hold them accountable, to not allow them to make too many errors of the same kind,” Levy said.

Although they are held to high standards, the next generation of North Carolina midfielders still comes back every day to drag the goals out onto the field before practice and pick the balls up off it at the end. In between, they push one another to get a little bit better every time out, logging game experience and “mental minutes” all along the way.

“Sometimes they walk off and they’re a little frustrated,” Levy said. “And there’s other times they walk off, and they feel like they’ve gotten on another rung of the ladder where they’re like, ‘OK, I’ve got that one. I can move on to the next step.’”



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