Women's Lacrosse

Freshman attack Emily Hawryschuk fulfills childhood dream of playing at Syracuse

Courtesy of Syracuse Athletics

Emily Hawryschuk has fit right into the Syracuse offense in her freshman year.

Emily Hawrsychuk idolizes the Syracuse greats who came before her. She spent days in her backyard shooting not at a net, but at the thick trunk of a tree that stood behind her house. She had pictures of SU legends in her room, reminders of their accomplishments and blueprints for her own path.

Michelle Tumolo was the first. The 2013-graduate finished with 278 career points (141 goals, 137 assists) and was a finalist for the 2012 Tewaaraton Award. Then it was 2016 graduate Kayla Treanor, a name synonymous with SU lacrosse.

As a seventh grader, Hawrsychuk watched her first lacrosse game and became addicted. She spent her middle school days shooting in her backyard mimicking Tumolo’s fierce shots. Imitating Treanor proved a little more difficult.

A freshman at Syracuse, Hawrsychuk practices on the same field as Tumolo and Treanor once did, trading the tree for nets in Manley Fieldhouse. She plays under the same head coach, Gary Gait, and is a key contributor for No. 8 Syracuse (8-2, 2-0 Atlantic Coast Conference). The Victor, New York, native’s 15 goals are good for third on the Orange, even though the freshman doesn’t start.

“I think she’s a very talented young lady,” Gait said. “She’s out there with the first group. We believe in her.”



Treanor’s force and presence on the field could not be easily replicated in a backyard. Before every high school game Hawrsychuk played, she went on YouTube and watched highlights of the SU great. Hawrsychuk’s father, Nick, recalled seeing his daughter come home after games and going straight to the backyard to a bucket of lacrosse balls and net.

She hasn’t loved lacrosse her whole life. The first time she picked up a stick was in the seventh grade and her father, who played lacrosse in high school but football in college at Alfred University, recognized his daughter’s skilled hand-eyecoordination and bought her a gift: a $30 stick from Dick’s Sporting Goods.

“It was like a tennis racket, but she didn’t care,” Nick said.

Hawryschuk, who finished high school with 378 points, didn’t care about what stick she used until she attended one of Gait’s lacrosse camps at SU. She saw the top-of-the-line plastic used by Tumolo and Treanor and realized it was time for an upgrade. Nick remembers spending a “small fortune” on the sticks.

He pleaded with his daughter but she didn’t listen. The No. 8 recruit in the country refused to look at other colleges. Hawrsychuk told her father that she would one day play for Syracuse after watching a game on television.

The pair made the 70-mile trek east on Interstate-90 to watch games in the Carrier Dome. Hawrsychuk got a first-person look at her heroes. During their first trip to the Dome, the two sat behind the visiting team’s bench all alone in a sea of concrete. They soon realized their error and laughed when they saw crowds pile in behind SU’s bench, the customary place for Orange fans to sit.

“We didn’t know what to expect,” Emily Hawrsychuk said, laughing at the memory. “From then on, we sat on the right side.”

Six years later, the Hawrsychuks still go to every game. Nick remains in the stands, now sitting with his younger sons and admiring the current crop of SU stars. Emily, meanwhile, plays on the Carrier Dome turf, cutting, dashing and scoring just like the people in the pictures in her bedroom once did.





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