Michelle Tumolo had just started playing lacrosse, but she was already passing too hard. At a four-day all-girls lacrosse camp at Clearview Regional High School in New Jersey the summer before her freshman year, Tumolo caught on to the passing drill too quickly. Her partner couldn’t keep up.

Her coach, Megan Conklin, asked the left-handed Tumolo to pass with her right hand. That didn’t work. Her passes were still too strong.

“Just the way she held the stick I could tell she was athletic immediately,” Conklin said. “I turned to my assistant coach and said, ‘This girl is going to be amazing. Mark my words.’”

About eight years later, Tumolo continues to back up Conklin’s premonition.

Tumolo is one of the top players in the nation, sitting on the Tewaaraton Trophy Watch list for the second straight year. The Orange’s dominant attack led Syracuse to the national championship game last year, where it fell to Northwestern. Now, she looks to bring the Orange back for another chance at winning it all.

Tumolo didn’t start playing organized lacrosse until her freshman year at Clearview. Until that point, she was a budding star on the soccer field. But Tumolo wanted a new, competitive challenge, and Clearview’s lacrosse program was in its initial stages. It presented the perfect opportunity for Tumolo.

“Lacrosse was something new,” Tumolo said. “I played soccer my whole life. I almost felt like I was tired of it even though I loved soccer, but I just liked something new.

“When I get something new in my life, like a sport, I just want to get really good at it and I wasn’t good at it.”

Tumolo immediately backed up Conklin’s promise. She shattered records in every statistical category throughout her four years of high school. She collected the most ground balls, had the most caused turnovers and won the most draw controls —records that, eight years later, Tumolo still holds at Clearview.

Tumolo garnered the attention of Syracuse head coach Gary Gait when she was only a sophomore. Gait saw Tumolo play for the first time at a camp and instantly saw her potential.

“She stood out as a player with unique stick skills,” Gait said. “I go after kids that developed that extra stick work, and she was lefty. That’s something that I look for.”

Even though she was excelling on the lacrosse field after only two years, Tumolo still thought she would stick with soccer.

Later into her high school career, though, she wasn’t receiving much attention from Division-I soccer coaches. But plenty of Division-I lacrosse coaches were taking notice. Rutgers and Penn State expressed interest in bringing Tumolo to their programs, in addition to Syracuse. Atop the list of interested schools, though, was Northwestern, one of the best lacrosse programs in the country. During that time, the Wildcats were going on a dominant run of seven championships in eight years.

But Conklin said she knew Syracuse would be a better fit.

Gait said he appreciated Tumolo’s diverse lacrosse skills, while her parents think he saw a little of himself in her.

“Gary lets her play around a little bit, they’re both exciting players,” Tumolo’s mother Carol said. “She’s always felt very comfortable around him from the first moment she met him.”

That helped lead Tumolo to Syracuse. While Northwestern’s status as an elite program attracted her, the distance from her hometown of Mullica Hill, N.J., was a concern.  A more than 12-hour drive to Chicago was too long.

Tumolo and her parents made an official visit to Syracuse during her junior year. She fell in love with the atmosphere of the Carrier Dome and the location. She also felt comfortable with the team, including the coaching staff. She signed her Letter of Intent to play for the Orange in November 2008.

The biggest selling point for Tumolo and her mother was the creativity Gait would allow her to play with on the field. Tumolo had always played a free style of lacrosse.

Conklin remembers a play she made in a tight game with 10 seconds left in regulation. Tumolo won the draw, reached up with one hand, grabbed the ball out of the air and scored. It was one of the many seemingly impossible plays Tumolo always seemed to pull off.

Conklin believed Syracuse would bring even more out of her.

“She’s entertaining and unpredictable,” Conklin said. “You never know if it’s going to be a behind-the-back, a riser or if she’s going to pass it.”

Tumolo’s unpredictable style of play is what has made her a threat for the Orange.

In her freshman year, she notched single-season records for the most points and assists for a freshman in Syracuse history. At the end of the season, Tumolo was also the nation’s second highest-scoring freshman with 74 goals.

Tumolo contributed to the Orange’s offense in her second game at SU. With a behind-the-back shot to extend the Syracuse lead, Tumolo helped the team to a 16-7 victory over Stanford.

Each season, Tumolo progressed quickly. Sophomore year, she led the team in scoring and in her junior year, she was named the Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association’s Attacker of the Year.

Her highest honor came later in the season, when she was named a Tewaarton Trophy finalist in 2012. Tumolo was one of five finalists for the award, which Maryland’s Katie Schwarzmann ultimately won.

But Tumolo isn’t focused on the award anymore. Her goal is to help Syracuse get back to the NCAA championship and bring the program its first national title.

After losing to Northwestern in the final, she didn’t let the loss cap what she describes as the best run of her life.

“UNC and Florida back to back will stick out in my head for the rest of my life,” Tumolo said. “Out of nowhere, we came with these comebacks and it was insane.”

In the quarterfinals against North Carolina, SU was down two with only three minutes remaining in the game. Tumolo scored a goal with 2:24 to go that kickstarted a 3-0 run for Syracuse and lifted the Orange to a 17-16 win over the Tar Heels. She delivered the game-winner with five seconds to go, propelling SU to victory.

In the semifinals, Tumolo orchestrated yet another comeback, leading Syracuse back from a seven-goal deficit to a 14-13 win in double overtime against No. 1 Florida.

Syracuse ended up losing 8-6 in the championship to Northwestern. Tumolo isn’t hung up about the loss. Instead, in her senior year, she took the offseason to perfect her craft and work on her leadership role.

“She’s really got to know the freshmen and younger players,” Gait said. “That’s the kind of communication you need with the leaders on the team to make sure you’re successful.”

Though the Orange (2-1) is out to a slow start, Tumolo is looking to pick up the offense in the team’s stretch of road games in the next month.

Accomplishing everything she wanted in soccer in high school, Tumolo looks to accomplish a feat she has not done in lacrosse: a national title. Since the first year she started playing lacrosse, Tumolo has always been one of the best.

Now, she hopes to win that national title. And she’ll be a major factor in Syracuse’s ability to do just that.

Said Gait: “We’re expecting her to lead our offense and be the type of player that, when we need big plays, she delivers.”

Published on February 28, 2013 at 3:11 am

Contact Melissa: qsbronso@syr.edu