Countdown 2025: Knocking Out the Bully (and Much, Much More)

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Welcome to Navy Sports Central, the official podcast of the Navy Sports Nation!

Have you ever thought about what defines a truly unforgettable sports moment? Is it the stakes, the rivalry, the upset, or the individual brilliance that creates memories lasting a lifetime? In this special year-end edition of Navy Sports Central, we tackle this question by counting down the top 10 most memorable moments from the 2024-2025 Navy athletics season.

The countdown features remarkable achievements across multiple sports, from squash and gymnastics to the ones that typically take center stage like football and lacrosse. 

We celebrate the dominance of men's cross country as they secured their fourth straight Patriot League title, while men's track & field picked up their eleventh consecutive championship. Equally impressive was the women's swimming team winning their 13th straight conference title through extraordinary depth, despite not having a single individual swimming champion.

But rising above all these accomplishments is our #1 moment: the Navy women's lacrosse team shocking resident Patriot League bully and top seeded Loyola in overtime to capture their first conference championship since 2018.

To explore this historic victory in depth, we're joined by special guest Cynthia Lisa ('00), who provides expert analysis on how the Mids managed to overcome a five-goal third quarter deficit against a Greyhound program that had never lost a regular season Patriot League game in their history (93-0). We spotlight freshman sensation Alyssa Chung's five-goal performance and Mikayla Williams' championship-winning shot in overtime, while paying tribute to legendary coach Cindy Timchal's sustained excellence over 43 seasons.

Whether you're a die-hard Navy sports fan or simply appreciate stories of athletic achievement against the odds, this episode captures what makes following these remarkable student-athletes so rewarding. Subscribe to Navy Sports Central and join our Facebook community to stay connected as the Mids prepare for another exciting sports season beginning this fall. 

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Episode Transcript

Karl (00:14):
Hi everybody, my name is Karl Darden and I'd like to
welcome and thank all of you forjoining us today.
On Navy Sports Central.
I'm your host, and this is theofficial podcast of the Navy
Sports Nation, where we take adeeper dive into Navy sports.
To the official podcast of theNavy Sports Nation where we take
a deeper dive into Navy sports.
Commissioning week has come andgone, so congratulations to the
class of 2025.
And now that the sports seasonis over, it is time to take a

(00:35):
look at the top 10 mostmemorable moments in Navy
athletics.
The Mids experienced theirshare of ups and downs across
all sports this year, but therewere plenty of times to
celebrate and that's what we'regoing to be doing today.
So stick around.
The countdown starts withnumber 10 when we come back.
All right, it's great to haveyou guys with us.

(00:57):
Thanks so much for dropping in.
I really appreciate you takingthe time.
As you heard in theintroduction, it is time for us
to count down the top 10 mostmemorable moments in Navy
athletics this year.
This is the fourth edition sincewe started the podcast back in
2021, and I will say that it isa purely subjective list.
I make the selections based ona certain set of criteria I came
up with, so I will quicklyreview those right now.

(01:19):
First off, what was at stake atthe time that the outstanding
individual or team performanceoccurred?
In other words, what kind ofsignificance did the contest
have?
Was it during the regularseason or was there a league or
even national championship onthe line?
Second, was there a newpersonal best or top 10 best
program record established?
And third, did that outstandingperformance come against Army

(01:40):
or was it an upset?
Or, even better, was it againstArmy and an upset?
So that's the lens that I usedto evaluate my choices.
And if you happen to puttogether a list also, I'd be
curious to know how closely itmatched up with mine.
And, by the way, one last thingbefore we get started.
I'm going to be tryingsomething slightly different
this year.
My plan is to give selections10 through 2.

(02:01):
They're just due, for sure.
But the majority of thisepisode will be focused on the
number one, most memorablemoment, and I'll be able to go
into quite a bit of detail too,because I'll have a special
guest with me to help break itdown.
So now that we've covered allthat, let's go ahead and kick
things off, coming in at number10 in this year's countdown.
We've got Navy footballknocking off the 23rd ranked
Memphis Tigers 56 to 44.
I almost didn't include thisgame but ultimately decided that

(02:25):
it did belong for a couple ofreasons.
First of all, it was a winagainst a ranked opponent, and
that's always good, and Memphiswas also the preseason favorite
to win the conference.
Besides that, this was thefirst really big test of the
season after two relatively easywins against Bucknell and
Temple, and it was anopportunity to see if this new
hybrid wing T installed byfirst-year offensive coordinator

(02:46):
Drew Kronick was the real deal.
The previous week the Memphisdefense had held an explosive
Florida State offense at just 12points, so it seemed like the
Tigers were more than capable ofputting the clamps on Navy.
Now.
It was a competitive game fromthe very start.
Memphis led 14-7 after onequarter, but Navy's offense
really found its rhythm afterthat.
They ended up outscoring theTigers 21-3 to take a 28-17 lead

(03:08):
.
Into the locker room athalftime, quarterback Blake
Horvath was running the offenselike he'd been doing it for
years.
He ran for 211 yards on just 12carries, and that included a
7-yard TD and a monster 90-yardscore that put the mids up by 19
with less than nine minutes togo in the game.
Horvath also threw 492 yardsand two touchdowns.
Still, memphis had a chance towin the game after putting up

(03:29):
two quick scores to close withinfive points 49 to 44.
But Rayon Lane sealed the winwith an 86 yard pick six with
less than half a minute to go inthe contest.
So this win was the firstreally big indication that 2024
could be a really special seasonfor the mids.
Against the Tigers they rackedup 566 yards of total offense
and averaged nearly 11 yards perplay.
The team also scored 143 pointsthrough their first three games

(03:52):
.
The previous year they didn'treach that number until the
eighth game.
So this was very much astatement game for Navy and by
knocking off the favorite Tigersthey sent a clear message to
the rest of the conference.
That was good enough to grabthe number 10 spot in our
countdown.
Moving on to number nine, we'vegot the Navy men's cross-country
team crushing Army in theirstar meet and then finishing the
year with their fourth straightPatriot League championship.

(04:14):
These days the collegecross-country schedule is made
up of a series of invitationalsand actually the mids only have
one dual meet each year, which,of course, is against Army.
Lately, the men's cross-countryteam has been absolutely
overpowering and on October 19,2024, army wound up on the wrong
side of another beatdown.
Led by senior Murphy Smith, themids placed nine runners among

(04:37):
the first ten finishers.
In fact, smith set a courserecord by covering the 4.9-mile
distance in 23 minutes 25.8seconds.
That beat the previous recordthat had stood for nearly 17
years by four seconds and, bythe way, that 4.9 miles
corresponds to an 8k.
The mids crushed the BlackKnights 18 to 45.
And remember, the lowest numberwins in cross country, with the

(04:58):
first five finishers for eachteam in a dual meet.
Accounting for the scoring,navy's top five placed first,
second, fourth, fifth and sixth,and they also took the next
three spots, which pushed Army'slast four point producers
further down the line.
It was a dominating winanywhere you look at it, and the
Mids used this momentum to winthe Patriot League Championships
less than two weeks later.
Once again, murphy-smithcrossed the finish line first

(05:20):
and seven other teammates placedin the top 10, as the Mids
brought home their fourthstraight title.
This program continues toperform at an elite level year
in and year out, which is whythey landed at number nine on
our list.
Now let's take a look and seewho is at number eight.
That would be Alexander Orr andRamsey Killinger winning the US
Intercollegiate Squash DoublesChampionship.
The College Squash Associationis this sport's governing body,

(05:43):
and each year they sponsor theIntercollegiate Doubles
Championships.
This past April they were heldin Philadelphia, pennsylvania.
The Navy Squash team finished17-11 overall on the year and
while they weren't able toadvance beyond the division team
championships, they did send acouple of teams to compete for
the National Doubles title.
Orr and Killinger wereunstoppable.
They won four straight matcheson their way to the title, with

(06:08):
three of them coming on.
Three sets to nothing scores.
For those of you who aren'tfamiliar with squash, the games
go to 15, and it's the bestthree out of five sets.
This was the first nationaldoubles titles for the mids
since 2019, and it's theirseventh overall, so Navy's most
recent national championshipcomes in squash.
The racket sport that'sprobably the least familiar to
all of us, but Alexander Orr andRamsey Killinger shined a
pretty bright light on it thispast spring, and that's why they

(06:33):
pulled down the number eightposition in this year's top 10
most memorable moments in Navyathletics.
At number seven, we turn ourattention to women's golf, a
team that won their secondconsecutive Patriot League title
this year.
This is one sport where there'sno star match, because Army
doesn't have a varsity women'sgolf team.
So the mids' primary goal everyyear is to win the league
championship.
They brought back some strongplayers from last year's squad,
so the chances of a repeat lookpretty good Now.

(06:55):
During the championships, navywas led by sophomore Emma Tang
from Chino Hills, california.
She posted an even par 216 overthe three rounds and that was
good enough to win theindividual title.
Four strokes behind her wereteammates Sue Lee and Megan
Kirkpatrick, and then KiraHoward placed 10th.
The mids won the title by apretty wide margin, and the good
news is that the four whofinished in the top 10 will all

(07:18):
be returning next year.
So congratulations to thewomen's golf team on a second
straight league championship,putting them at number seven on
our list.
Next up at number six, navygymnast Isaiah Drake earns
All-American honors for thesecond straight year.
Following another clutchperformance at the NCAA
championships, drake became justthe seventh ever Navy gymnast
to pick up All-American statustwo years in a row, and the last

(07:40):
guy to do it was Eric Swanson.
That was way back in 1972 and1973, so we're talking over 50
years.
Drake is a senior from LosAngeles, california, and he
competed in the all-aroundcompetition.
The top eight finishers arerecognized as first-team
All-Americans.
Things were still tight withtwo rotations left, though Drake
had both the parallel bars andthe high bar remaining, but he

(08:02):
did post a good enough score inboth of those events to secure
the eighth and final spot.
This was his third trip to theNCAA championships, and he
closed out his career in styleas one of the best ever in the
history of Navy gymnastics.
That's why Isaiah Drake getsthe number six spot on our list
of most memorable moments.
Now the guy coming in at numberfive is a pitcher on the Navy
baseball team.
His name is Landon Krewer andhe's from Sellersburg, Indiana.

(08:29):
Krewer just wrapped up hissenior season as one of the best
closers ever to come throughthe program, and he was
especially dominant this year,posting an earned run average of
just 1.97, while opposingbatters only hit .204 against
him.
Here's another metric thatdemonstrated Krewer's overall
effectiveness this past year Hiswalks and hits per innings
pitched, otherwise known as whip, was 1.16.

(08:51):
The closer this number is toone, the better, because it
means the pitcher doesn't allowa whole lot of base runners.
Crewer's whip was the lowest onthe team.
Finally, this past spring hepicked up two saves against Army
, the second coming in thedeciding third game of the
series, which gave the mids thestar.
What makes this even moreremarkable is that Landon Krewer
wasn't even recruited to playbaseball at Annapolis.
He was an outstanding catcherin high school but didn't come
up on the coaching staff's radar.
But Krewer really wanted a shotat playing Division I baseball,

(09:13):
so he walked on in the springof 2022, looking to make the
team as one of the catchers.
That's when the coaching staffnoticed that he had a pretty
good arm and since the teamalready seemed to be set at
catcher, krewer was convertedinto the mids closer and the
rest, as they say, is history.
He led the team in saves allfour years and is now Navy's
career leader in saves with 34.
That's also the best mark inthe Patriot League, and those

(09:33):
two accomplishments are what putLandon Krewer at number five in
this year'scountdown.
The number four spot on ourlist belongs to the Navy women's
swimming and diving team.
This has been one of NavyAthletics' most consistent
programs over the years, andthey maintained their usual high
standards this season bywinning their 13th straight
Patriot League Championship and23rd overall.
By the way, no other team inthe league has more than four
titles.
This year the mids came out ontop to a real team effort, and

(09:56):
here's what I mean by that.
Normally at these conferencemeets, the winning team has, you
know, one, two, maybe threeswimmers that win a couple of
races, and they're supported bysolid performances by their
teammates.
Now Mackenzie Kim did finishfirst in both the one and three
meter diving events, and theteam of Ella Habjan, Lauren
Walsh, Carolyn Irwin andCatherine Weaverling got to the
wall first in the 200-yardmedley relay.

(10:17):
Habjan, Walsh and Irwin werealso joined by Tiffany Shields
in the 400 medley relay, and theNavy women took that event as
well.
Shields in the 400 medley relayand the Navy women took that
event aswell.
But the interesting thing herewas that the mids did not have a
single winner in an individualswimming event at the Patriot
League Championships.
That is very unusual and itspeaks to the team's tremendous
depth.
So even with no one swimmertaking first, the mids placed
enough competitors high enoughto grab the points needed in

(10:39):
most of the events to win thetitle.
Here's a quick example Army wonthe 500-yard freestyle event
and earned 32 points.
They also placed fifth and 12th, which were good for 25 and 15
points.
Now I'm not going to go intothe details of how points are
distributed in a meet like this,but the bottom line is that the
Black Knights' three bestfinishers totaled 72 points.
Navy's first three women totouch the wall wound up taking

(11:02):
fourth, which was 26 points,sixth, which was worth 24, and
seventh place, which was worth23 points.
Some quick math tells you thatcomes out to 73.
And it turns out when you addin the points of the other
finishers in the event, the midstotaled 93 points compared to
88 for Army.
It was like that for quite afew of the other swimming
events.
So in a meet like this, itwasn't enough for a team to

(11:22):
finish first in any given event.
They needed to win the mostnumber of points available.
Navy leveraged their depth soeffectively that they ended up
winning the meet by 268 points,even though no individual
competitor took the top spot onthe podium.
That's pretty incredible.
So congratulations to the NavyWomen's Swimming and Diving team
on just an amazing performance.
Their 13th straight PatriotLeague title and the way they

(11:43):
won.
It places them at number fourin our countdown.
At number three on the list wehave the men's outdoor track and
field team winning their 11thstraight Patriot League title
and sending five athletes to theNCAA championships.
It seems like no top 10 listwould be complete without this
program making an appearance,and this year's men's team was
loaded, no question aboutit.
At the Patriot Leaguechampionships, the mids won
seven events, those being the4x100m and 4x400m relays, the

(12:07):
200m, the 400m, the 400m hurdles, the 10,000m and the high jump.
They also finished 2nd, 3rd and4th in the 5,000m, as well as
2nd and 3rd in the pole vault.
But I'd have to say that thecompetitors that stood out the
most for them this year wereMurphy Smith in the 5,000 and
10,000 meters and the members ofthe 4x400 meter relay team.
The three mainstays in thatgroup were Nathan Kent, Pete

(12:28):
DeJong and Jacques Guillaume,and, depending on what was going
on in a given meet, the fourthteam member was either David
Walker or Simon Alexander.
All of those guys have beenresponsible for nine of the 10
best times in the program in the4x400, including the first
seven.
Dejong, kent, alexander andGuillaume set a Patriot League
record in winning this year witha time of 308.11, and then at
the regional qualifier inJacksonville, florida, kent,

(12:50):
walker, dejong and Guillaume rana program best 304.05 to
qualify for nationals.
Murphy Smith also made the tripto Eugene and all five athletes
earned All-America recognitionwith top 10 program performances
in those events, and NathanKent just barely missed out on
getting a spot in the finals ofthe 400 meters by just two one
hundredths of asecond.
It was another fantastic yearfor the men's track and field

(13:11):
team, and consistent standoutperformances from their five
All-Americans pushed them allthe way up to number three on
our list of most memorablesports moments for 2025.
Okay, now we're down to ourlast two spots, and the first
thing I'll say is that the toptwo moments this year were
pretty much no-brainers At leastthey were to me.
The only question was whatorder should they be in?
Trust me, this was not easy,but after reviewing my criteria,

(13:32):
this is what I decided.
Coming in at number two in ourcountdown, the Navy football
team reclaims the Commander-inChief's trophy and defeats
Oklahoma in the Armed ForcesBowl to finish the season at
10-3.
I'd have to say that the Midsdefinitely exceeded my
expectations this year.
After the Memphis game.
I felt pretty good about thempulling down at least eight wins
and, despite the season Armywas having, I thought they had a

(13:53):
really good chance of knockingoff the Black Knights too.
So when the Mids took down AirForce in Colorado Springs in a
dominant 34-7 win, they putthemselves in a position to win
the Commander-in-Chief's Trophyoutright for the first time
since 2019.
Two months later, they squaredoff against an Army team that
had just destroyed Tulane theprevious week to take the
American Conference Championship.
But this game wasn't even thatclose.

(14:14):
Blake Horvath thoroughlyoutplayed the Black Knights
quarterback Bryson Daly, and theNavy offense racked up 384
yards, while holding the BlackKnights to just 179.
They didn't have a singleturnover, while the Mids'
defense intercepted Daly threetimes.
The Mids put the game awayearly in the fourth quarter when
Landon Robinson took a fakepunt and picked up 24 yards.
That led to Blake Horvath'ssecond touchdown of the game,

(14:36):
which made the score 28-13.
Navy closed out the scoringwith a Nathan Kirkwood field
goal following aninterception.
So with theCommander-in-Chief's trophy in
hand, the Mids traveled to FortWorth, texas, to take on
Oklahoma in the Armed ForcesBowl.
That game was a lot different.
The Sooners jumped out to aquick 14-0 lead.
Before Coach Volker got theNavy defense dialed in, they
shut down the OU offense in themiddle part of the game, while

(14:57):
Blake Horvath led the team on adrive that cut the lead in half
14-7 before halftime.
Then, with just four minutes togo, in the third, he pulled the
ball on an option and ranstraight up the middle for a
95-yard touchdown.
To tie the score, horvath addedanother with four and a half
minutes to go, after a drivethat ate up seven minutes and 32
seconds on the clock that gavethe Mids a 21-14 lead.
After Oklahoma scored, with sixseconds to go to get within one

(15:19):
, they decided to go for atwo-point conversion and the win
.
But the Navy defense pressuredsooner.
Quarterback Michael Hawkins andJustin Reed came up with a big
sack allowing the Mids to hangon
21-20.
So that was a perfect ending toa terrific season of Navy
football.
The Mids had regained theirexplosiveness on offense to
complement an already toughdefense, and that combination
played a huge role in producing10 wins, taking back the

(15:41):
Commander-in-Chief's trophy andpulling off a great bowl win
against a blue chip footballprogram in Oklahoma, and that's
what got the team to the numbertwo position in our 2025
countdown.
All right, we are finally tonumber one on our list which
Navy sports moments earned ourtop spot this year.
Like I said, I had a tough timewith this one, but when I took
a look at all the teams involved, the backstory going back about

(16:01):
a dozen years and what was atstake, it seemed to be the right
choice.
So here we go, coming in atnumber one on our list of most
memorable moments in Navyathletics in 2025, the Navy
women's lacrosse team crushesnumber two seed Army and stuns
number one seed LoyolaUniversity in overtime to win
the Patriot League championship,punching their ticket to the
NCAAtournament.

(16:21):
Now, as I mentioned at the topof the show, I've got a really
special guest joining me to talkabout this moment in great
detail, so you have got to staywith us.
You'll be glad you did.
Thanks for staying with us onNavy Sports Central, Karl Darden

(16:50):
, here with you, and it is mypleasure to welcome back our
guest for this segment for herthird visit.
She is Cynthia Lisa, from theclass of 2000, who is, hands
down, my go-to person for allthings related to Navy women's
lacrosse.
Cynthia, thank you for joiningus.
Once again, I really appreciateyou taking the time.

Cynthia (17:04):
Thanks, thanks again for having me.

Karl (17:07):
So what I wanted to do is and I kind of gave everybody a
little bit of an idea of mycriteria for selecting these top
10 moments and the first onebeing the significance of the
game, meaning what was at stakehere.
Right, and obviously here we'retalking about a chance to go to
the NCAA tournament, so thatwas big in and of itself.

(17:29):
The other thing we talked about, too, was you know, was this a
rivalry game?
And you know, obviously in thesituation where you're looking
at Navy athletics, there's norivalry bigger than Army.
But I think when you get intowomen's lacrosse, you can pretty
much say that Loyola runs areally close second, and we can
talk about that later.
And then, finally, was this anupset?

(17:50):
I think that we can probablymake a pretty good case for that
.
And then the other thing we'lltalk about is individual
performances.
You know, what did we see onthe field from the individual
players that led to this victory?
So that's the criteria, and nowlet's go ahead and set the
stage.
I think it's probably best togive everyone a sense of where
the mids were heading into thatgame.
So I'd like to start with yourassessment of the team going

(18:10):
into the season, and I think forthat to really tell the story,
we've got to backtrack to thechampionship game last year in
2024.
That one for those of you whoare listening and not aware,
navy took Loyola to overtime inthat game and just suffered a
crushing defeat after justbattling them the whole way.
So, cynthia, as a coach and asa former player, how does a game

(18:36):
like that affect the team'spsyche in terms of getting ready
for the next year in your mind?

Cynthia (18:40):
I mean, you're just fired up, you are angry, you are
depressed.
I feel all the emotions forthat.
Whatever you're allotted, Igive my players and myself 24
hours to feel it and then you'realready looking ahead to the
next season.
So I imagine that the coachingstaff let it go for about 24
hours.
I think what compoundedprobably their frustration and

(19:03):
anger and fueled their fire morewas missing out on the
tournament again last year,because that Patriot League
title gives you an automatic bid.
So when they didn't get either,I imagine they came back ready
to go, ready for Loyola andagain they lost in the regular
season.
So all of these compoundingfactors now are just motivating

(19:25):
your team.
That this is it.
You know we're not going to letthis happen to us again.
We're not going to put in thisposition and if we are put in a
position where we're tied again,we're going to be the ones to
come out on top.
So I mean you clearly you sawthat.

Karl (19:38):
Right, right.
So now let's look at yourassessment of the team.
Coming into the spring Lostsome good players, but, as you
know, coach Tim Schell just hasa knack for developing some
depth.
So who did you see as some ofthe key players that were going
to be responsible for makingsure that the mids were able to
get back to that title game?

Cynthia (19:55):
players that were going to be responsible for making
sure that the mids were able toget back to that title game,
sure.
So Emily Messonese, you know acaptain, she's an attacker but
she's on the draw circle.
She had the infamous lost toothin the Navy game.
You know that goes down in Navywomen's lacrosse history.
She's a fantastic young womanheaded to flight school, but I
really think she is a leader anda captain.
Just it's 110 with her all thetime.

(20:18):
So I think, having that there,um, one of the, you know we, we
do talk about her.
She gets the accolades andthings like that.
But one of the most importantkey factors is alyssa daly and
the draw controls and what shehas been able to do.
You know, surpassing everythinglast year into this year, that
was key, coming back.
And then you have mckaylawilliams, who, weing everything
last year into this year, thatwas key, coming back.

(20:38):
And then you have MichaelaWilliams, who we talked about
last year.
Now she's a seasoned sophomore,got that youngster excitement
with her.
And also the goalie, feliciaGiglio.
So you have all these.
Those to me are probably themost.
You could probably list about10 more girls who are, or 10
more sorry, they're not girls,they're young women.
You know who who could fit inon that list, but I think those

(21:00):
are some of the key players thatreally were impactful the
entire season and you saw thatand we knew that coming back
into the year.

Karl (21:07):
All right, very good.
And, as I mentioned just asecond ago, I continue to be
amazed with coach Tim Schell'sability to just find these
freshmen and not just freshmeneither.
They're fearless, ok they.
They come in and have animmediate impact.
And she's also been able totake players and put them in the

(21:28):
system and develop them to thepoint where they have like a
breakout year.
Who did you see?
That just kind of maybe notcame out of nowhere, but you're
just like going, wow, theyreally stepped up this year.

Cynthia (21:39):
In my opinion, that was Emma Kennedy.
She wasn't super on the radarlast year, which is kind of
where you want to be.
You know, a lot of times theseplayers aren't getting accolades
, they're not the top goalscorers, things like that, but
they're making things happen onthe field and they're getting a
lot of playing time and justconsistently putting in the work
to get better.
And she had five goals in, youknow, against army this year and

(22:02):
that was huge, um, and and Idon't even think she was a
regular starter, so she wascoming off the bench to perform
like this Uh, she, to me, had acomplete breakout year.
She's a junior, so she, you know, she's been working hard for
for two years just to get thereand then, you know, her time
finally came whether it's age orsometimes it's injury or things

(22:23):
like that that allow theseplayers like, hey, now's my
chance.
And she stepped up and madethat opportunity what it was
worth for her.
This year.
She really, I felt like, had a,had a huge breakout year and
now going into her first year iseven you know well better
position to stand out on thefield.

Karl (22:40):
And then jumping over to just the impact freshmen, I
think anybody's been evenremotely connected to, to
following the team this year.
Alyssa Chung is a no brainer.
I mean, what a phenomenalplayer.
So where did she come from andwhat can you tell us about her?

Cynthia (22:53):
Where did she come from and what can you tell us about
her?
So she's a Severna Park native.
She's, you know, local.
Fantastic that Coach Timshawwas able to recruit her and keep
her local and everything youknow such a highly touted
recruit she just a little shortstory.
My high school team plays up atSeverna Park at um over spring

(23:16):
break every year and last yearshe was injured and my assistant
coach and I are both Navy grads, navy lacrosse players, and
she's over there doing wall ballyou know.
So it's a tournament, all theteams are doing stuff and you
see her doing well, well, andyou know, we introduced
ourselves and I said hey, I knowyou're going to Navy, best of
luck If you need anything,something like that.
So I think that just speaks toher dedication and work ethic

(23:37):
and just an unbelievable playerwho got put on the stage as a,
as a plea.
But you know, not only are youa freshman, most people really
don't understand that you're.
You're not really a freshman,you're a plea.
That is a very, very hardposition you're still trying to
figure out.
You know, how do I get myuniform right?
probably well, maybe not by now,but, but let's hope not.

(23:58):
But you know, to be able tofind that level of success at
some place like navy is isunbelievable, um, and those of
us who went there can attest tothat.
But uh, she clearly is a forceto be reckoned with and you know
, a humble human and justgrateful she's playing in in
Bloomberg.

Karl (24:18):
Okay, so season gets off to to a pretty decent start.
As usual, coach Tim Shaw has afairly tough non-conference
schedule to get the team readyfor Patriot League play, and I'm
not going to go into all thedetails of the records here.
But as they progressed throughthe season I felt like, okay,
they've, they're definitely onan upward trajectory.
But then, going into the Armygame, I was, and first of all it

(24:41):
was an away game, so I knewthat that was going to be an
issue.
Secondly, I still felt like ifthey played up to their
potential they were probablygoing to win, because even
though Army's ranked about thesame, I just felt pretty good,
especially what we saw last year.
Both you and I saw the game lastyear live and that was a
tremendous game.
But unfortunately it was notthe outcome we were looking for.
It was, you know, army won 17to 12.

(25:01):
And as I looked at that, it wasjust another case of a team
getting out of the gate slowlyand then, by the time they were
ready to come out there and play, it was a little bit too late
to dig themselves out of thathole.
So you compare that with whathappened in the Patriot League
semifinal, where they justrolled them 18 to nine same two
teams.
They're playing, like I don'tknow, 18, 19 days apart,

(25:24):
completely different result.
Now I know we're kind ofspeculating here, but as a coach
, can you kind of maybe throwsome thoughts out there on, okay
, what possibly could havehappened?
Was it maybe just making somereally good adjustments?
Was it just them coming?

Cynthia (25:40):
out with with more fire , or what do you think?
So, you know, I think I musthave been on a lacrosse field
where I missed, like the firstportion of the game.
Um, but in my mind this was aneasy victory.
Um, you know, I've beenwatching the team.
I know what they did last yearto army.
Army graduated a really goodclass.
They still have some of their,their key stars.

(26:01):
But so when I turned the gameon, you know, I was like what is
going?

Karl (26:07):
on.

Cynthia (26:09):
But you know, the stakes are always higher with
the army Navy always higher, andyou talk about that a lot.
I think, um, nerves are aproblem, you know.
Um, that happened.
Like you said, you're away,that is always, always hard
because you're in enemyterritory and the army navy you
saw it last year we, the crowdwas like thousands of people it

(26:31):
was nuts, yeah it was.
It was one of the best gamesI've ever been to, um as far as
the atmosphere.
So now transfer that to theother side.
That's very detrimental to yourteam, but it's hard to beat a
team twice.
It's hard to win twice in anArmy-Native game.
I think last year wasunbelievable that they were able
to beat them twice.
So I think that while they madeI'm sure they made key

(26:53):
adjustments to their game andwho they targeted to defend a
little harder and where theydecided to attack a little more,
um, but I I I think they hadlost the loyola in the regular
season.
Now they've lost army, sothey're coming in third so now
the uphill battle is just evenharder and and you know we've
got all that energy from lastyear we lost the patriot league

(27:16):
championship, we didn't make thetournament.
Now we we've lost Loyola andArmy again, like we're not going
to let this happen and that,you know, mindset shift, I'm
sure, and they just came out onfire and put Army on their backs
right away and that was anunbelievable game.

Karl (27:29):
Yeah, yeah.
They literally just jumped outstrong and just never, ever came
off the gas.
So that was great to see.
Okay, now let's move on to theLoyola game and I was kind of
reviewing the box score just asecond ago and, different from
the first Army game, the midscame out ready.
They jumped out to a 4-3 leadin the first quarter and then

(27:54):
the Greyhounds essentially justtook control of the game in
quarters numbers two and three.
Uh, what do you recall aboutsome of the things that they
were doing that allowed them toseize control of the game like
that in the middle half?

Cynthia (28:09):
Georgia Latch she I mean she's their key, their key
player.
She had, I believe it was fourgoals.
She's their key player.
She had, I believe it was fourgoals, five assists.
So that's nine goals of their 13that she was involved in and,
if you remember, she scored theovertime goal last year against

(28:30):
Navy to win.
So I think it's a get her theball and she has that mindset of
I'm not going to stop and I'mgoing to put the team on my back
and make it happen.
They lost Sydney Black, who isanother key scorer for them um.
So I think that the weightshifted more to Georgia last,
last year and I think she reallyshe was in control of the game
for a significant portion of itwith Chase Boyle, who's you know

(28:52):
a fantastic draw control umperson.
She's a midfielder.
She was a torn finalist lastyear Between those two.
I think they really just said,hey, we're going to make this
happen for our team.

Karl (29:06):
So, yeah, she was unstoppable.
I mean, the mids is one ofthose situations where they
didn't have a complete answerfor her, but it was just a
matter of just trying to disrupther any way they could to kind
of shift things in theirdirection.
So now we kind of paint thepicture here.
I mean, we're talking about asituation where Loyola has just
scored their third straight goalto go up 11 to 6.

(29:27):
Now it is just a little overtwo minutes into the second half
and, granted, lacrosse is afast game and things can happen
quickly, but the mids weredealing with a team that and, by
the way, for those of you whoare not familiar, let's talk
about Loyola's record in thePatriot League just for a second
.
Okay, I mean it is unbelievable.
Cynthia, I don't know if wetalked about this before, but I

(29:48):
equate Loyola coming into thePatriot League in 2014 to a
bully who has taken over astreet corner.
I mean you know you're walkingby the street, you know walking
by the corner and they say, hey,give me your lunch money.
You know that sort of thing.
But that's how it felt to mebecause they came in and they

(30:10):
immediately had an impact and,like I said, for those of you
who are not familiar, loyola hasnot lost a regular season game
to a Patriot League opponentever.
It's like 93-0 we're looking atright now and on top of that,
the only team to ever beat themwas in the Patriot League
tournament and also in the NCAAtournament has been Navy.

(30:31):
So the Mids have been the onlyteam that has been able to
figure out how to beat them inthe last basically 11 years.
So hats off to the coach andtheir program for being able to
establish that kind of dominancea NCAA bid on the line, because
they got snubbed last year.
So there's nothing to say thatthe same thing wouldn't happen

(30:57):
this year Although it didn't,because Loyola also got in, but
we didn't know that at the time,right, I mean.
So that's the situation.
As a coach, what do you tellyour team?

Cynthia (31:10):
It's hard time, you know?
No, I think I think it's no,yes, it is a Titan and yes, it
is the schoolyard bully, but youcan't treat this too much
bigger than it is.
You have to just play thelacrosse, that you know how to
play.
Ground balls matter, drawcontrols matter, shot placement,

(31:31):
shot decision-makingdefensively, not getting fouls,
turnovers, things like that.
You really just have to focus onthe game and try to take away
that anxiety of we've neverbeaten them and we're, you know,
the more you talk about neverhaving beaten them, or this is
our time to beat them, the moreit's in a player's head of, hey,
we've never beaten them.

(31:51):
So you know, you just try tofocus on what you can control
and that's all the the littlepieces of the game that really
make the difference.
And come down and in tightgames like that, you look at
some of the stats.
You, which we were talkingabout, navy had 46 shots, loyola
had 20.
Um, that we, you know, beat themin ground balls, we beat them
in draw controls, we beat themin cause turnovers significantly

(32:14):
.
Um, they had more turnovers,more failed clears, things like
that.
That all add up and while itwas only a one point game, you
can see where Navy was justpounding and grinding and
everything like that.
And I think that, you know, iswhat the coaches, I'm guessing,
you know, talk to them about.
Like, hey, let's just do allthe things that we can control,

(32:36):
right, we cause that turnover,we go for that ground ball, we
get the draw control.
Um, you know, don't waste ourshots against a fantastic goalie
who won goalie of the year, soit's so hard.
You know you can't ignore theum enormity of the game, but you
also can't focus on it and onlydwell on it with your athletes.

Karl (32:57):
Right, right, and yeah, I did want to touch.
I'm glad you mentioned a coupleof things with regard to the
shots on goal and also theperformance of Loyola's goalie.
She was seeing the ball reallywell in the first half,
obviously, maybe got off to aquick start, but after that she
really kind of got locked in andI noticed something a little
bit different in the second halfand I'm going to ask if you

(33:20):
agree on this.
I remember this from when Iused to play like club lacrosse.
You know, after I got out ofthe Navy, we had a really good
goalie.
I mean, he was awesome and he'salso the coach of our team and
one of the things he always toldthe offensive players I play
defenseman, so I didn't reallyhave to worry about any of this
stuff, but he always said I playdefenseman, so I didn't really
have to worry about his stuff.
But he always said hey, if agoalie is seeing something
really well, give them adifferent look.

(33:42):
Yeah, right, and, and so what Iwas noticing in the second half
is that, um, different from thefirst half.
The Navy shot takers were,everything, was, was, was fairly
, you know, high top part of thecage, that sort of thing Second
half you started seeing a lotmore low stuff.
Okay, bounce shots or just inthe case of the winning goal,
which we'll talk about in aminute, was just a low laser.

(34:04):
You know that sort of thing.
So I was wondering if you couldkind of discuss how changing
things up a little bit when itcomes to attacking the goal can
really make a huge impact and,in fact, get inside of a
goalie's head a little bit.

Cynthia (34:19):
Yeah, I mean, goalies are amazing human beings.
I could never get in that goal.
And have you know, lacrosseballs fired at me by like Alyssa
chunk speed, you know, some 77miles per hour, um, but they
succumb easily to the pressuresof their position.
Not everybody, you know, it'svarying levels, but if you can
get in a goalie's head and startto just pick away at it, pick

(34:40):
away at it, you are now incontrol of the game.
I think that there's lots ofways that you can change up what
you're doing and shot placementis one of them.
Shot placement as far as, likeyou mentioned, high or low,
where the shot is coming from,from the right side, from the
elbow, from the crease, um,where, whether you're moving the

(35:01):
ball, you know.
If she was seeing a lot more ofthe assists happen and she was
ready for that, expecting, youknow, maybe she had.
They had scouted Navy as anassist team, so Navy said, hey,
we're going to go more one V one, so she's not expecting it as
much as she's expecting the pass.
All of those things aredefinitely ways that you can

(35:21):
change up how you're impactingyour shots, and not necessarily
just you know, okay, we need toshoot and she was having a good
day going high so I said, allright, let's just, let's do this
and, um, yeah, and I meanfantastic job with by the

(35:42):
coaches and switching it up andthe players for adapting to it
right, right, yeah, that was uh.

Karl (35:48):
That was definitely key, and I did want to go talk to um
one particular shot again.
This is on a.
This is towards the end of thegame.
It was a free position shotthat Alyssa Chung took and I
remember you describing in ourlast conversation how much of a
difference there is in theathleticism of these young women
over, say, the last five yearsor so, and there's a lot of

(36:10):
factors that contribute to that.
But Alyssa Chung got fouled andshe had a free position
opportunity from the left sideand I can't remember if she's
right or left-handed.
I'm pretty sure she'sright-handed.

Cynthia (36:21):
It's hard to tell right .

Karl (36:22):
Yeah, exactly.

Cynthia (36:25):
Because I mean she can deliver from both sides, no
doubt.

Karl (36:29):
And the shot that she took .
Literally I'm like looking atthis and when I saw it go past
the goalie, first of all, Ididn't even see it go past the
goalie number one.
Secondly, I rewound the DVR soI could watch it again in real

(36:49):
time, because, had I not knownthat it was a women's lacrosse
game, that looked like a guytaking that shot, because of
just the force and the power ofit all.
Yeah, I guess I just want toget your thoughts on that,
because that's just somethingthat you did not see a couple of
years ago.

Cynthia (37:04):
No, I mean, women have taken a lot or adapted a lot
from the men's game and this isdefinitely an area where you see
it now, which you never saw inmy day no one was firing it in
from the eight meter.
You know, we've played againsttop recruits where they're
firing it in even from the thenine or ten spot and you're like
I was not, I didn't think youcould shoot out there.

(37:26):
Um, whereas in the guys gamethey're shooting from every
distance.
Um, I think one thing aboutalissa chung she's obviously
strong, she's got that in innate.
You know shot placement andthings like that.
But what really makes her aspecial player is her um, lax IQ
and her ability to adjust.
So you're not every time shegets on the pre-position shot,

(37:50):
you don't know what you're goingto get.
She might run it in, she mightsend that lower corner, whip
past the goalie, shot Um, andthat's what makes her so
dangerous.
And I think you know when we'retalking about attacking and how
you can change things up.
Sometimes your best shot isgetting into the eight meter and
drawing a foul, or, you know,getting that shooting space foul

(38:11):
and if you put it in AlyssaChung's stick it's going to go
in on the eight meter because ofall those options that she has
and she, um, she takes.
So her shots are just, it'sjust incredible and it doesn't
just happen.
She's clearly put in a ton ofwork and the coaching staff is
clearly developed, continue todevelop.
You know what she already hadand made her just that, just a

(38:32):
sniper from wherever she is.

Karl (38:35):
It's incredible so, yeah, I think that, uh and you
mentioned, uh, how much of aquality shooter she is In the
game she took 10 shots, had fivegoals, so I mean, from an
efficiency perspective, that'snot too bad.
Also picked up a couple ofground balls.
Let's talk about some of theother players that had an

(38:55):
excellent game against Loyolathat allowed them to pull this
out.
We've already talked aboutAlyssa Chung, who are some of
the folks that you spotted thatmade a big difference.

Cynthia (39:04):
So Alyssa Daly, a hundred percent.
You know I mentioned her oncealready, but going up against
Chase Boyle.
So Chase Boyle is another.
I think she had 200 plus drawcontrols this season.
One of the reasons she was aTorton finalist last year was
was her draw controls and herability.
Dan adobe, who's the loyolacoach, is one of the best draw

(39:25):
control um coaches out there andshe always develops her player
incredibly.
So for alissa daily to come inand maybe to have more draw
controls than loyola, I thinkwas a huge difference maker in
the game um.
Her ability whether it'sdrawing to herself sometimes
it's just so she makes it lookincredibly easy, or she's

(39:46):
getting it out and the Navyplayers are picking it up.
Either way, it's just, it'sjust incredible.
I think that was a huge, hugefactor for Navy.
I think you know Alyssa Chungobviously we've talked about her
.
I think some of the defendersyou're mentioning defenders it's
so hard because you know thedefenders never get the credit

(40:08):
that they deserve, or rarely.
Rarely do they get the creditthey deserve.
If they don't do their job,they get in trouble.
If they do their job, no onereally notices.
You have you have some strongdefenders out there and some
strong underclass defenders.
Jacqueline Johns led the teamthis year in cost turnovers and
she's only a sophomore, and Ibelieve she had two in the

(40:32):
Loyola game.
Another one Landon Kane hadthree cost turnovers in the
Loyola game and she's only asophomore.
One of my favorite defenders towatch is Grace Peterson, because
she is so incredibly fast onthe clear and that is such an
underrated um spot right there,like if you can't clear the ball
, it's.
It's not like men's where youhave a certain time limit, but
you do have a time limit um,because the shot clock's running

(40:53):
.
So I think, if you know she'sgetting the ball and she is
busting down to the other end,you know, I think that's.
That's really important.
But I also think you had um.
Obviously Michaela Williams wonthe tournament um MVP and she
only had two goals in the um inthe final game.
But what doesn't always getrecognized and I talked about

(41:13):
this a little bit with EmmaKennedy is the.
It's just the work they're doingand the off ball work and the
making and Alyssa Chung get openor you know, an Emily Emily
Macedese assist or whatever it'shappening.
Mckayla Williams is almostalways a part of it and she's
always working.
So I think she got recognizedfor that.
She had some earlier games withmore goals, but I think she's

(41:34):
just one of the people that youwant out there on the field on
your offense, always working,and she's on the draw circle too
a lot of times.
So those are kind of some ofthe highlights for me.

Karl (41:44):
Yeah, I concur with all those assessments because the
players are really special andyou're right about the, the
defenders too.
I mean the one stat you mightsee that kind of contributes.
Besides the cost turnoverswhich is a big one is is is
maybe ground balls, right, Imean just being able to get
there and change the possessionover by hustling to a ball and
getting it up there.
But you're right, I mean, a lotof times you just don't know

(42:07):
the impact of these playersunless you actually watch them
play.
So thank you for sharing that.
Oh, one last thing and this hasto do with something we talked
about offline was unassistedversus assisted goals in a
particular game.
Whenever I watch lacrosse, Ilove to see a play develop where
the ball works its way aroundto X and you have an attacker

(42:29):
back there looking for cuttersand just like the bang-bang
nature of the game where passshot and before the goalie can
get their head turned around,it's in the back of the net.
We saw not quite that sort ofthing in the Loyola game.
There's a lot more unassistedgoals.
What do you attribute that to?

Cynthia (42:48):
They probably liked their matchups.
A lot of times it's a game ofcan I beat my defender?
And that is most likely whatthey were seeing, whether it was
they were getting the rightmatchups or certain people had
the right matchups.
So what I say, what I mean bythat, is you know if, if I
consider you a weaker defender,I'm either going to attack every

(43:10):
time that you're defending meor we want to get you to be
defending a specific player soshe can attack Um, and based on
the variety of goals, goalscores in the game, I imagine
that they liked a lot of theirmatchups and the coaches
probably said, hey, you've gotthis, you can beat that girl and
let's, as an attack, make spacefor her to do that.

(43:33):
If the entire attack or theentire unit isn't working
together or the 1v1s don't work,the off-ball, whatever's
happening, whether it's movementor holding space is, is equally
important to that one V onehappening.
So that is my guess from astandpoint that that's probably
what was happening was that theyliked their matchups.

(43:54):
They felt like they could winthe one V one matchup and it's a
little less dangerous thanmoving the ball around.
Maybe you know they consideredLoyola, uh, to predict what was
happening with the assists andthings like that, um, and you
know I'd have to look at youknow you mentioned it and I
didn't.
I don't know this stat, but ifin their earlier Loyola game
that they lost over time, I won,um, if they had more assisted

(44:18):
goals.
So they were anticipatingLoyolaola, maybe scouting that
and expecting the assist.
So when it wasn't working, theysaid, hey, we gotta switch to
more, more dodges, right, andthe dodge is always what you
tell players is what starts youroffense.
Um, you've got to start theoffense with the drive and
someone's got to get the defensemoving and thinking, um,

(44:41):
because if you're just movingthe ball sometimes, sometimes
they aren't moving as much.

Karl (44:44):
OK.
So before we leave this, I wantto just kind of set the last
play up for everybody.
We're looking at first overtimeperiod.
We're about, I guess, threeminutes and 45 seconds in
something like that, and Navy'sgot the ball on the clear.
I guess there's a I don't knowif the ball went out of bounds
or something like that, I can'tremember it was a turnover but

(45:06):
Ava Yovino had the ball on herstick and Navy was starting to
clear it and I'm thinking, okay,let's just get it on our end.
And she just took off andstarted running and the
announcer said something thatjust made me laugh.
He goes well, I guess, if, uh,if your Navy, you want to clear

(45:28):
the ball, just give the Yovino,because that's like a
self-service there.
So she was in the offensive endimmediately and then she got
the ball to Mikayla Williams andI'm wondering if you could kind
of take us through whathappened from there.

Cynthia (45:33):
Um, she, she just beat her defense.
I mean it almost, it almostlooked too easy.
You know like she, she beat her.
She had so much space which isagain a tribute to the entire
offensive unit working together.
And and she shot, and shescored.
I was like it.
It couldn't have been that easyyou know like easy.
Obviously I'm saying that youknow they, these are incredible

(45:57):
athletes.
It's probably a planned playthat they had worked on and set
up.
But it really.
She really did a tribute to mMcKillop to make it look so easy
She'd be her girl and put theball where she needed to.
And that was it was like didthat really just happen?

Karl (46:11):
I think she even was just like yeah, it was great because
I mean the shot was, I mean itwas a, like I said it was a low,
said it was a low, low shot.
At first I thought it was abounce shot, but when I watched
it again it was.
It was tracking maybe two, twofeet off the ground and just
went right past the goalies leftside there.
And uh, what a tremendousfeeling that must have been when
she dropped that stick and justeverybody just erupted around

(46:34):
her.

Cynthia (46:34):
That was fantastic I know, and to speak to that shot
too, I mean, think about thestrength it takes to drop your
stick.
So now you're talking a ton ofwrist strength and then to also
have that speed, power andaccuracy is just, it's uncanny.
I mean, it's really, reallyphenomenal and clearly something
she's practiced and worked onand the coaching staff has

(46:54):
developed.

Karl (46:55):
So it was really great, came from the right side.

Cynthia (46:57):
I mean she came from the correct side.
You know what I mean.
Like it was just great.

Karl (47:01):
Yeah, okay, so you know that about does it for the
discussion of the game.
Really exciting year forwomen's lacrosse.
And, by the way, the one thingI did want to mention was that
at the beginning of the year,emily Messonese was featured in
an article in Inside Lacrossemagazine and after reading it,
that's when I said to myself Ithink they got a pretty good
shot of taking it this year, andluckily they made me look like

(47:23):
a prophet, so that was good tosee.

Cynthia (47:27):
We'll take it Right really.

Karl (47:29):
Okay, we're going to go ahead and take a short break now
, but before we do that, I didwant to give you all a couple of
ways to stay up to date on Navysports.
The first is to join the NavySports Nation group Facebook
page.
I've got a link to that in theshow notes.
Just click on it, answer acouple of questions and you'll
be good to go.
The second way takes even lesstime.
Just hit the follow button onwhichever platform you're
listening to this podcast rightnow.

(47:49):
It can be Apple Podcasts,spotify, iheartradio, it doesn't
matter.
Once you do that, every episodewill be downloaded to your
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So please consider becoming amember of our group and you can
actually tap that follow buttonright now to show your support
for the podcast.
I'm looking forward to havingyou join us.
We'll be right back.
Okay, thanks for staying withus everyone.

(48:25):
My guest Cynthia Lisa and I havebeen discussing the most
memorable moment in Navyathletics this season, and we
are just about finished.
I wanted to wrap things up hereby asking what your take is on
the next couple of seasons.
Really exciting year this year,obviously losing some players
to graduation, includingMessonese, but again we're
looking at some pretty gooddepth here.

(48:46):
What do you see moving forward?

Cynthia (48:49):
Like they say about the big teams, navy doesn't rebuild
, they reload.
You know they have a verystrong junior class.
You mentioned Evio, vino,maggie DeFabio back from injury,
the goalies of sophomore.
I mentioned the three.
You know two defenders who weresophomores.
Another defender who saw a lotof playing time was Tiana
Griffin.
She's another freshman.
One of the names that I wantyou to remember who got a lot of

(49:13):
playing time was Taylor Miles.
You may be familiar with herdad.
He's a very famous Navylacrosse player, hall of Fame
type.
Both of her sisters hadtransferred to Northwestern.
Her sister was in the nationalchampionship game, got a lot, a
lot of press, a lot of playingtime this year.
I think she played.
She's a freshman and I thinkshe played in every single game
this year.
So again, look for her to start.

(49:35):
You know, filling in maybe anEmily Messonnier's role or
things like that, but I thinkyou'll.
You'll see that.
I think, that probably thebiggest question mark will be
the draw controls.
Losing such a dominant BOGOlike Alyssa Daly will raise
questions in how do we fill thatspot?
But no doubt this coachingstaff has a plan for that as

(49:59):
well.
But I cannot see this teamdropping off at all the recruits
they're bringing in.
You know I've got two highschoolers right now of my own
and I'm a high school coach, soI see a lot of the recruits and
who they're pulling in is justincredible and a testament to,
clearly, the coaching staff, theprogram that these young women

(50:21):
have built, but also the NavalAcademy as an institution.
So I can't see anything, youknow, really, really being tough
for them and I just hope theycontinue to build.
I finished the year, I think14th or 15th, yeah, ranked you
know, so just unbelievable,right, right, okay.

Karl (50:37):
So the last thing I'm going to bring up here and it's
something that's always beenkind of lurking in the back of
my mind is how long CoachTimchal plans to stick around
here.
We're talking about a coachinglegend, but she just wrapped up
her 43rd year.
I mean that in and of itself isjust truly amazing, and as much
as you just want her just tokind of keep on going nothing

(50:59):
lasts forever.
So I'm just wondering what isgoing on there.
As a fan, I got to tell you Idread the day when she announces
that she's going to step awayfrom the game, but she's clearly
earned the right to do that onher own terms.
What do you think that CoachTimchal has meant to Navy
Women's Lacrosse in particular,but even on a larger scale, navy

(51:20):
athletics as a whole, up tothis point?

Cynthia (51:23):
Yeah, I mean, I've coached for almost half as long
as she has, and the energy andpassion that she brings to every
game, every talk, every meeting, everything is just
unbelievable.
Unbelievable um to do that for43 years and create the legacy

(51:48):
and you know legend, you knowthe the tree of coaches that she
has the tree, you know herplayers.
It's just unbelievable and andjust so incredible um for navy
to have um.
You know it's so interestingbecause with chet gladchuck
moving on and retiring and hebrought her in.
You know best move, best movethat he made in my opinion.
Sure, I don't doubt that yeahbut I also think she surrounds
herself with a just like being apart of a lacrosse team, that's

(52:12):
, um, you know, you have to be apart of the team.
Her coaching staff, they are ateam and they're all just
incredible.
They have, you know, they'vedone a really good job of
including the alumni, more sorecently, um, so I've had a
chance to be a part of alumniweekends and things like that,
and you can really see that theywork as a team and they all

(52:32):
support each other and shedevelops her coaches just as she
develops her players.
I don't know, you know whatthat, what that day will look
like?
I have no idea.
I don't know you know what that, what that day will look like?
I, I, I have no idea.
I don't know that she she willprobably know when she knows,
but I can't.
I mean, she has so much energyand passion and excitement.
I don't know, I can't imagineit running.

(52:53):
I literally can't imagine itrunning out you know.
Um.
So so you have a program thatshe has built.
She has drawn in this talentboth on her coaching staff, her
support staff and with theplayers, and I can't imagine
that when she does decide towalk awayathy reese has
obviously been an incredible umcoach there and continued on the

(53:26):
legacy, so she's she's great atthat too.
Um, it will definitely be, Ithink, a tough day for for navy
women's lacrosse, but she, likeI said she will, she will ensure
that it's set set up forsuccess for the future yeah,
yeah, yeah, well, yeah, wellsaid I.

Karl (53:40):
Uh, I have nothing but admiration for, for Coach
Timchal, I mean, ever since shewas brought on, and I was just
tremendously pleased with theapproach that, uh, the Academy
took when it came to hiring acoach, because obviously you're,
you're transitioning from clubto to the varsity level and it

(54:01):
could have been, it would havebeen really easy, right to just
go out there and find a goodquality coach, but you know one
with like zero head coachingexperience that you're just
looking to.
Okay, just have her cut herteeth on this program.
It's, we're going after thebest of the best here, and when
we landed Coach Timchal, I feltlike we'd won the lottery.

Cynthia (54:20):
Yeah, I mean, and you know there are, there are quite
a few coaches in the area youknow, um, obviously in the DMV,
who could have filled that roleand everything, and and even now
, um, you see kind of peoplemoving around and programs kind
of locally.
But just I mean for and for herto leave Maryland I mean Navy

(54:43):
obviously is a very prestigiousinstitution and everything but
to take a club program to avarsity program after winning
you know eight straight nationalchampionships.
Um, and it could have been likethis is my time to enjoy
coaching.
Take the pack off, I'm going tohave some fantastic young women
but, I don't need to.
you know, and and no, it wasnope, we're going to do this.

(55:05):
We are going to be a nationalcompetitor, we are going to win
the Patriot League.
We are going to beat army.
Um you know so.
So kudos, obviously for theselection and for her passion
and excitement for for Navy.
And it's always hard, I thinkas an alumni you know it's your
program, you have a lot ofsentimental value and you want
it's like your baby.

(55:26):
You don't want just anyone tobe in charge of it and you can't
ask for a better coaching staffthan they've had and a better
leader who they've had all thistime.

Karl (55:33):
So it's just been been very, very special to be a part
of yeah, yeah, and just tofinish up, the thought on what
the program has meant to Navyathletics.
I think historically and bythat I mean the last 15 years or
so for sure I think thatthey've probably been one of the
standard bearers for Navyathletics across the board

(55:53):
because of their consistency,and that is due largely to the
impact of Coach Timshaw.
I mean, year after year, shealways has her teams ready to
compete for a title.
I have learned so much aboutthe women's game since she took
over the program, and a lot ofthat is because of me wanting to
watch the types of players thatshe puts on the field.
So you know, that's myperspective on the kind of

(56:13):
impact she's had on the program,and I just can't say enough
about her.
Okay, cynthia, thank you somuch for spending time with me
today.
It was just awesome having youhere to recap what I believe to
be the most memorable moment inNavy athletics this year.

Cynthia (56:27):
Thanks for having me, as always.

Karl (56:29):
All right, you take care, okay.
All right, we are almost to thefinish line here on Navy Sports
Central.
Our question of the day iscoming up next.
This being the last episodecovering this sports season, I

(56:56):
decided to hold off on puttingout a new question of the day,
but I did want to recap theprevious one.
You may recall that it had todo with navy quarterbacks.
Here was the question bl.
Blake Horvath finished 2024 withover 1,200 rushing and passing
yards in the same season.
He was the third Navyquarterback to hit those numbers
.
Another one was Kenan Reynolds.
Now, who was the first toaccomplish that feat?

(57:16):
Was it A Roger Staubach, bChris McCoy, c Craig Candido or
D Ricky Dobbs?
Taking a look at the responses,it looks like 50% of you went
with Ricky Dobbs.
Next was Chris McCoy 26% of youselected him, another 16% went
with Roger Staubach and, finally, 8% of you chose Craig Candido.

(57:36):
Now, ricky Dobbs is a reallygood guess.
He did have over 1,200 yardsrushing and passing, but not in
the same season.
In 2009, he ran for 1,203 yardsand he had 1,031 yards through
the air.
Then, in 2010, he threw for1,527 yards and rushed for 967.
So definitely some greatnumbers there.

(57:56):
But in each of those two yearsone of the stats we were looking
for fell just short.
So it turns out that thecorrect answer was Chris McCoy.
He was the quarterback at Navyfrom 1995 through 1997, and it
was in his senior season that hehad 1,370 rushing yards, while
passing for 1,203 more.
Mccoy is probably one of Navy'smore underrated quarterbacks.
He did a great job running theoption when Paul Johnson was the

(58:19):
Mids Offensive Coordinator in1996.
Then Coach Niyamata Lolo tookover the job when Johnson left
to become the head coach atGeorgia Southern in 1997.
So nice job to those of you whocame up with Chris McCoy.
And, by the way, in the 1990sthe Mids won a grand total of 41
games.
Mccoy was the starter duringthe only two winning seasons
Navy had in 1996 and 1997.

(58:40):
The Mids record during thosetwo years was 16-7, and that
included a 9-3 campaign in 1996that finished up with a win in
the Aloha Bowl over theUniversity of California.
That's going to do it for thisedition of Navy Sports Central.
Thank you all so much forjoining us Now.
If you like what you've heard,please be sure to hit that
follow button wherever you getyour podcasts, and remember to
get the word to all the otherNavy fans out there.

(59:01):
Once again, I'd like to giveanother shout out to Cynthia
Lisa from the class of 2000 forsharing some terrific insights
on the Navy Women's Lacrosseprogram.
I've got to say that I walkaway from every one of our
conversations feeling a littlebit smarter about the game.
So great job, cynthia.
I couldn't have done today'sdeep dive segment without you.

(59:23):
And just a quick reminder theviews expressed on Navy Sports
Central are my own and do notreflect those of the US Naval
Academy or Navy Athletics.
By the way, the music used inNavy Sports Central comes to you
courtesy of Audio Jungle.
This is a great site forpurchasing the rights to use the
music from thousands of artistsaround the world, and those
featured in the podcast will becredited in our show notes.
Talk to you soon, everybody.
Until next time.
This is Karl Darden.
Go Navy, beat Army.