Despite the disappointing, déjCB vu end to the women’s lacrosse season on Saturday, junior Steph Coyne has taken the necessary steps to fill the void left by last year’s graduating class.
Coyne is currently ranked No. 3 in the nation in assists, and No. 11 in the nation for points. Coyne also became the program’s all-time career assist leader.
“I’m pretty proud I think it was a good year,” Coyne said. “I had a lot of support behind me. Our attack was amazing this year, and as far as the assists, everyone was in the right place at the right time.”
Coyne has had to step up, especially after Kristie Leggio’s eligibility ended last season.
“Because we lost Kristie, I knew that the rest of our attack and I really needed to fill some big shoes,” Coyne said on how she’s stepped up this season.
“The goals I set were to make sure there was a leader in the attack, to make sure points were getting scored, and just to not hold anything back,” she said.
And the No. 17 Pioneers came close to doing just that, losing to No. 20 Stanford in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championship by just one goal.
“Going in, we were fairly confident about the game,” Coyne said. “Never did I think that it would turn out like that, but we swept our conference in regular season, and I think that shows a lot, maybe even more to me than the championship, even though the championship would have been awesome.”
Coyne finished the season tallying 53 assists and 86 points.
“I’m not used to being an impact player and I think this year was a huge change for me, and like I said before I’m proud of it but I don’t want to take anything away anything else on the attack. I’m just feeding it in there they have to catch it; I just hope I can have a big impact again next year, and maybe even more, that would be nice.”
As Coyne looks to next season she still hopes for a conference championship.
“Liza is really good at building this program,” Coyne said about Head Coach Liza Kelly.
“We’ve come a long way and the first year I was here we were so up and down. Ever since Liza’s been here we’ve been a lot more consistent especially sweeping the conference two years in a row, that’s huge for us. Yeah we haven’t come away with a championship but I think we will. I’m pretty proud it was a good year for me, the best I’ve ever had.”
