Amanda Murray started thinking about college lacrosse in sixth grade. By her freshman year at Bow, she was checking out schools as far away as California. Despite all that detailed searching, there was a touch of luck involved as Murray surprised even herself with the final decision.
“Southern Connecticut wasn’t even on my list when I was a junior,” Murray said. “It just kind of came up on this college match process I did online, so I thought I’d check it out and as soon as I stepped on campus I fell in love with it. The coach, Maureen Spellman, is really nice and the team seems to get along extremely well. They showed me around campus and we had lunch together and as soon as I came home I knew that’s where I wanted to go.”
Division II Southern Connecticut is currently 3-11, but its last two losses were by one goal each. The Owls fell, 10-9, in overtime at Assumption and lost, 14-13, at Franklin Pierce on Saturday, a game Murray got to see in person.
“It’s such a fast-paced game at that level,” Murray said. “I’ll need to get faster and get better with my stick handling, but just picking up the speed of the game is what I’ll need to work on most.”
Murray, a four-year varsity player, was a Division III Second-Team pick last year at attack and a junior captain for the Falcons, who went 7-7 before losing in the quarterfinals. She’s back in the captain’s role this year and has helped Bow get off to a quick 2-0 start.
Murray was also a two-year captain and four-year varsity player for the Bow girls’ basketball team, helping the Falcons to a 59-22 record in those four years and four straight playoff appearances. She was also a two-year varsity player for the Bow girls’ soccer team, winning a pair of D-III soccer titles in that time.
While Murray has definitely left her mark on the Bow athletic program, she won’t be the last Murray to impact the Falcons. Shannon Murray, a 15-year-old sophomore, played varsity basketball with her sister the last two years. Makalya Murray, 13, is on two AAU basketball teams this spring. And Kendall Murray, 9, “is crazy good at soccer,” according to big sister Amanda.
“They all play basketball, soccer and lacrosse,” Amanda said. “And they all have all sorts of potential.”
Which is the more impressive feat for Coe-Brown’s class of senior female runners – the 10 Division II championships they’ve been apart of or the four athletes the class is sending to run in college (three at the Division I level and one at D-II)? It’s a tough question, even for the coaches.
“It’s a pretty amazing group with those four scholarship athletes,” Coe-Brown Coach Brent Tkaczyk said. “They’ve done special things here and we’re excited for them to be graduating, and we’re looking forward to them doing more great things in college.”
The signings began in the fall when Liz Danis inked her National Letter of Intent to go to the University of Alabama. Danis was the most decorated runner in the class, participating in the cross country national championships in Oregon in December after finishing second at the 2015 D-II girls’ cross country title meet, leading Coe-Brown to its sixth straight D-II title, and finishing second at the Meet of Champions to lead the Bears to a fifth straight MOC crown.
But Danis hardly did it alone, just like she won’t be the lone Bear running in college. On Monday three more Coe-Brown seniors made their commitments to the next level – Brooke Laskowsky to Cornell, Meg Scannell to Appalachian State and Julia Cormier to Franklin Pierce.
Laskowsky was sixth at last year’s D-II meet and 18th at the MOC. She’ll focus on the 3,000-meter steeplechase in the spring for Cornell.
Scannell took eighth at the D-II meet and 17th at the MOC race. She ran through multiple injuries in high school and figures if she can stay healthy at the next level, she’ll be able to make that big jump to D-I college athletics.
Cormier arrived at Coe-Brown with no competitive running experience. So she spent a couple years on the junior varsity team and turned herself into one of the top runners in the state, finishing ninth at the D-II meet and 10th at the MOC.
A hockey player has bolstered the Concord boys’ tennis team this spring. After earning Division I First-Team recognition as a defenseman for the 16-3 Crimson Tide hockey team, Matt Chorlian dropped his gloves and picked up a racket for Concord for the first time this spring.
Chorlian, a junior, has been playing tennis with Sebastian Hart-Meyer, Concord’s No. 4, since the two were in middle school. Chorlian was also friends with Concord’s top three – Justin Toler, Aidan Connor and Adam Bryant – before joining the team. And all of the tennis players encouraged Chorlian to join them on the courts this season.
“They all told me I had a good chance of being in the top six, but I wanted to stay humble, especially during tryouts, and it worked out well for me,” Chorlian said.
Through preseason challenge matches he earned the No. 5 spot on the ladder, right behind his four friends. Chorlian has gone 4-1 in singles so far, helping Concord, last year’s D-I runner-up, get off to a 4-1 team start.
“It’s been fun, especially getting better and competing,” Chorlian said. “It’s been a little more pressure than I thought, especially when you get down, it kind of gets in your head.”
Like most new players, Chorlian isn’t winning points with firepower. Instead, it’s a combination of smarts, patience and grit, which is reminiscent of how he plays hockey.
“As a defenseman I’m kind of small, so I’m not really going to overpower people or knock people over,” Chorlian said. “And it’s the same in tennis. I’m not going to beat people with winners, I have to be crafty to win points.”
(Tim O’Sullivan can be reached at 369-3341 or at tosullivan@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @timosullivan20.)