Despite being 11 years older than her youngest brother, Mason, Hawryschuk still practices with him today because they play on opposite sides of the field. When she got to college, the two established a rule: Hawryschuk couldn’t go more than three days without coming home to see him.
After living on campus her first two years, Hawryschuk is back living at home. She travels nearly 90 minutes to school every day from her hometown of Victor, and scheduled her first class of the day each day past 11 a.m. to get by.
When she’d have tournaments in high school up and down the east coast, her family would go to watch, no matter the distance. On her brother Joey’s 10th birthday, the family drove nine hours to see Emily play.
“They were just always there,” said Kerrie Brown, Hawryschuk’s club coach. “It was kind of unreal. Her parents are unbelievable.”
Sticking out on Lady Roc, her high school club team, against the best players around the United States — and proving she was better — helped Hawryschuk gauge her talent level. It was there, as well, where Brown was able to see Hawryschuk’s commitment to the people around her first-hand.
During one game at the annual Star Spangled Lacrosse Tournament in Baldwinsville, Lady Roc was fooling around and committing careless turnovers. Brown pulled Hawryschuk aside and told her, “we’re gonna do things the Lady Roc way, or we’re not gonna do things.”
“All of a sudden you put her back in the game, and it was like, assist here, goal here, draw control,” Brown said. “She was having too much fun and had to be kind of humbled, and she took it so gracefully and did exactly what we needed.”
At Syracuse, Hawryschuk is the player that calms down the team, just like Brown calmed her down. While she’s generally a quiet person off the field, Hawryschuk is the player whose voice is heard when SU finds itself down a goal or two and huddles in need to get back on track, SU teammate Julie Cross said.
