For her stubborn aggression, Bridget Looney was found tangled between bodies and sticks three games into last year; found between the Virginia women’s lacrosse team’s fortitude to add to its lead and her own refusal to give up.

So what of the then-No. 2 Cavaliers’ growing lead at its Klckner Stadium. The co-captain of the then-No. 4 Syracuse team saw her chance at a loose ball and went for it.

After all, to fall in a tussle for possession would show heart in the senior from Waldorf, Md. That she had taken from growing up wrestling with three older brothers. That taught Looney about lacrosse and determination and applied that grit into her game – scrapping the worn meshed strings of her stick on turf as if to remind herself – until she won every possession.

‘I just go hard every time,’ Looney said. ‘And hope it works out in my favor.’

It’s in that logic Looney recorded an Orange high of 33 forced turnovers as a junior and found herself with a torn ACL and the rest of season to sit on the sideline last year. The same logic that the redshirt senior returned with and recorded a point in all three games this season, because Looney is bound to the way she plays.

‘It probably started with our parents and their values and morals,’ Looney said. ‘It probably started with my brothers.’

Billy Looney, the oldest of six siblings, didn’t want to play baseball, Looney said. He was awful at it. So lacrosse became his sport. Second-born Steve Looney would join him, then Brendan Looney followed. And each brother, like their parents, stressed support for one another, Looney said, to strive.

‘We were very close,’ Looney said. ‘We motivate each other to do our best and be our best.’

After the season opener, Looney spoke to Steve, who noticed that for the five shots Looney had shot against Le Moyne, she scored one. ”Yeah, Bridget sucks,” Looney recalled her brother saying, with a laugh.

The brothers played for the Naval Academy, and Looney would watch as the three lost in the Orange by one goal in the 2004 NCAA championship final. Still, the older brothers were stubborn and aggressive. And at 13, that logic grew in Looney.

‘Being around her three older brothers, always right in the middle and fighting around with them, that’s where I think she gets all that aggressiveness,’ senior attack Katie Rowan said.

She became a midfield – like her three brothers. She was determined to chase after each loose ball, the way she was taught behind a ‘little’ town house in Maryland.

‘She’s one of our only true middies on the field,’ Rowan said. ‘She’s both on the attack and on defense. She really pushes everyone and wants the best out of every player.’

And for her stubborn determination, Looney would lead her team with 42 ground balls her junior year and cause 1.83 turnovers per game playing at midfield. Then came injury – a loose ball in a tight game against Virginia.

‘To not play lacrosse was a blow to the stomach,’ Looney said.

Waiting was the hardest part, she said. But from the sideline, Looney found ways to stay in, pulling aside the youth of her team.

‘I wanted them to do the things I couldn’t do, and hope that they could get as far as I could.’

Against Georgetown in the Big East tournament last year, Rowan remembers the smile cut across Looney’s face. So what if the Hoyas lead by one point after the first half. The Orange would outscore them 10-3 after the break.

In turn, helping those around motivated her own willingness to play, Looney said. That she would come back the following year, to the sport she loves. An outlet for what she misses back in Maryland.

Looney returned with one goal this year: ‘To finish what I started here in Syracuse.’

edpaik@syr.edu

Published on February 23, 2009 at 12:00 pm