Syracuse women’s lacrosse: Emily Hawryschuk leads strong showing from SU alums at inaugural WLL event

The strength of the program was on full display at the professional tournament in Springfield, VA.

The past week of mid-February 2025 was a monumental and historic one for the sport of women’s lacrosse.

It marked the inaugural competition for the brand new Women’s Lacrosse League, which ushers in an exciting new era for the game at the professional level.

The competition, which was part of the PLL’s Championship Series, was a week-long event played in the ‘sixes’ format and played by the league’s four charter members: the Boston Guard, the California Palms, the Maryland Charm and the New York Charging.

Part of this seminal moment was a quartet of Syracuse Orange alumni, all of whom took the field as teammates for the New York Charging. The four rosters were based around a foundation of alums from power programs, with New York’s roster primarily composed of ‘Cuse and Northwestern players.

Emily Hawryschuk, Meg Carney, Meaghan Tyrrell and Emma Tyrrell were all there, and boy did they do their alma mater proud. Unfortunately, the Charging fell in the championship game to the Boston Guard, so they were one step short of helping to claim the first title in WLL history.

But their play was spectacular and their contributions immense to the successful run New York went on through the tournament. In fact, a Syracuse player led or tied for the team lead in points in four of NY’s five games (Hawryschuk 3x, Carney 1x).

Perhaps no player in the entire event had a better week than Emily Hawryschuk, who led all players with her 19 goals and 23 points. Emily’s efforts won her the Golden Stick Award, presented to the player who leads the tournament in goals.

The numbers she put up were impressive, but watching her play this past week was an incredible reminder of her abilities as a lacrosse player. She’s kind of underrated when you consider how much she’s talked about in the landscape of the sport. She doesn’t necessarily get the attention of a superstar, but she sure does play like one.

Her offensive arsenal was as good as it gets in this tournament, as she scored goal after goal in any way she wanted. The most attention-grabbing was her prolific outside shot, which was on display from game one. A large portion of her goals were scored around or even behind the PLL two-point arc, and her combination of power and marksmanship in those shots was lethal for the opposition.

Players were so intimidated by her outside shot that multiple times I saw a player turn her back as Emily wound up, only to have her pull a hesitation move and dodge right past them for a goal from the inside. She scored with her feet set, on-the-run, facing away from the goal, and spinning through four defenders:

She was at her absolute best in the semifinals against the California Palms, where she scored seven goals on seven shots. Like I said: marksmanship.

Emily wasn’t the only Orange alum showing out. Meg Carney also had an outstanding tournament, finishing with 13 goals and 16 points. Meg’s shooting game was also on fire all week long, as she was pinging corners with power and authority from distance.

She scored on a couple of beautiful jump shots, one that she bounced in. She had a phenomenal flick-of-the-wrist shovel goal when dodging up from X, and she had an incredible individual effort when she went spin cycle while dodging from up top before scoring on a bouncer while on-the-run. It was a clinic in highlight reel goal scoring.

The Tyrrell sisters didn’t put up as gaudy numbers, but that’s mostly because, on a loaded NY roster, they simply didn’t get as many touches as some other players. For some context, Emily led the quartet with 30.2 touches per game. Carney had 17.8 per game, Emma had 16 and Meaghan had 12.4.

Meaghan finished the tournament with six goals and seven points, and Emma finished with four goals and five points. Even with fewer touches, they weren’t left out of the highlight reel. Emma had a beautiful backhanded shovel goal while facing away from the net in the first game, and Meaghan had a couple nice catch-and-shoot goals in traffic as well as a few times when she got loose to weave through the defense the way she did so many times for SU.

All in all, it was a really fun chance to get to see some of our favorite recent ‘Cuse players taking their games to the next level and continuing to have a ton of success. It’s even more exciting that they’re now getting the actual chance to take their games to a next level, which has been lacking in the women’s game for far too long.

Just like the whole league, Emily, Meg, Meaghan and Emma made the most of their initial moments in the WLL. Congratulations to them and everyone involved, and we’re looking forward to a lot more moving forward!