HEADS UP: How Meaghan Tyrrell’s style of play creates more scoring opportunities

Photo/Mark Nash

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By Allie KaylorSenior Staff Writer

February 17, 2021

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Megan Carney raced along the eight-meter arc, put her head down and charged. In her sight was Meaghan Tyrrell, who had a different plan.

Tyrrell accepted Carney’s feed and kept her head up. In front of Tyrrell was a Northwestern defender who would soon be on the receiving end of a face dodge and a wide-open goal.

Tyrrell would go on to score four more times en route to a 16-11 upset win in Evanston, Illinois. To those that knew her best, an offensive explosion like this was no surprise. But her offensive style doesn’t fit the mold of many other top college attacks.

While Syracuse leading scorer Emily Hawryschuk prefers to bulldoze toward the goal and embrace contact, Tyrrell keeps her head up while weaving through an opponent’s defense, she said. Other elite attacks keep their heads down, thinking how and where they can place the ball — but that’s not entirely Tyrrell’s strategy. By keeping her head up, she has an advantage when looking for an open pass with a plethora of options ahead of her to maneuver around a defense, she said.

“I think it definitely leads to more opportunities to actually get a goal,” Tyrrell said.

Her eyes-up, head-up approach is what led a freshman Tyrrell to drop 57 points — 37 goals, 20 assists — in an already packed offense with the likes of Carney, Hawryschuk and then-senior Nicole Levy. After the shortened 2020 season, Tyrrell is heading into her junior year with heightened expectations. Her style of play is what she and her team think will guide No. 3 Syracuse to another deep run in the NCAA tournament.

“She’s still scratching the surface of her abilities,” said Al Bertolone, Tyrrell’s coach at Mt. Sinai High School. “I’m very proud of watching her excel at that next level.”

As a kid, Tyrrell was committed to soccer. She practiced multiple times a week and saw herself potentially playing in high school and beyond. But as lacrosse’s popularity spread around Long Island, she joined her friends on the lacrosse field instead.

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She fell in love with the sport after joining her school team. One of her coaches convinced her to try out for the Long Island “Elite” Yellow Jackets, a local travel team he also coached for. Although she was relatively new to the sport, she made the team and spent the summer traveling around the region, competing against other teams along the East Coast.

When many of her teammates in both high school and club were committing to Division I schools, she realized she could do the same down the line if she chose lacrosse over soccer.

“Around eighth grade, I decided that it was something I wanted to do in college,” Tyrrell said. “Ever since then, I’ve been straight lacrosse.”

Tyrrell started her lacrosse career as a defender, which helps her in her current role as an attack. Her defensive background gives her better scoring opportunities, she said, because she can anticipate what defenses will run.

Once the midfielders push the ball into an offensive position, Tyrrell immediately assesses which defenders are near her, what type of defense they’re running and where defenders will be next.

“I can still remember, even though I was younger, how a man-to-man would work and what their thought processes are,” Tyrrell said. “I can keep up with the defense’s thoughts and their actions.”

Meaghan Tyrrell complements Emily Hawryschuk and Megan Carney on Syracuse’s high-powered offense. Courtesy of SU Athletics

Against Canisius last year, the Golden Griffins were running a zone defense. As the Orange rotated around the perimeter, Tyrrell kept her head up and watched the defenders shift as the Orange passed around the arc. When she found an opening in front of the goal, she ran directly to it and motioned to Sam Swart, who fed her the first goal of the game less than a minute in.

She later ran from behind the goal and to the edge of the eight-meter arc, dodging a Canisius defender and feeding a perfect pass to a wide-open Sierra Cockerille, who scored to give the Orange a 10-3 lead.

“Her head was always up, she was a complete attacker,” Bertolone said. “Offensively, she could beat you on the dodge. She could feed like she was a quarterback.”

Since meeting Tyrrell as a seventh-grader, Bertolone pictured her playing at Syracuse. As a left-handed attack, Tyrrell excelled at dodging to the left, and he compared her to some of Syracuse’s best all-time players. He said they used to study “all the great Syracuse lefties” such as Michelle Tumolo and Riley Donahue, who are fourth and ninth on Syracuse’s all-time career points list, respectively.

As a freshman, Tyrrell showed a glimpse of that left-handed talent. In her first collegiate game against UConn, Tyrrell was positioned next to the goal and received a pass from Morgan Alexander. She immediately turned around, dodged a defender and took a clean shot for her first career goal.

Her head was always up, she was a complete attacker. She could feed like she was a quarterback.

Al Bertolone, coach at Mt. Sinai High School

Four minutes later, she was in the same position. From behind the cage, she cut to the front, faking out a defender before whizzing the ball just past the goaltender. Both times, she kept her head up on the dodge until locking eyes with her target and scoring.

After recording five points in her debut, she had five hat tricks in 21 games and 20 starts, including a four-goal game against Cornell. She was second on the team in goals and points, behind only Hawryschuk.

“Right off the bat, she was just the greatest energy ever,” former Syracuse teammate Natalie Wallon said. “I remember immediately being impressed with her when she came in as a freshman. She had such an immediate impact on our team that season.”

After being a top-three goal scorer for the Orange in her first two seasons, Tyrrell’s learned to make every game count after the season was cut short three hours before faceoff in Virginia on March 12.

In that February game against Northwestern, Tyrrell wrapped around from behind the goal, dodging a Wildcat defender to position herself straight on. Madison Doucette lunged to her left as Tyrrell shot to her right. When the ball hit the net, Vanessa Costantino jumped into her arms as the rest of the team swarmed, celebrating Tyrrell’s fifth goal of the game to give Syracuse a two-goal lead.

And as she fired that shot, her stance was the same as always — with her head up.

Banner photos by Will Fudge | Staff Photographer, Jordan Phelps | Staff Photographer and courtesy of SU Athletics. Design by Nabeeha Anwar | Illustration Editor and Emily Steinberger | Photo Editor