Emma Muchnick’s efficiency, versatility help SU dismantle Brown
Emma Muchnick scored her most goals since she tallied five against Loyola on March 19 on Friday, sending Syracuse to the NCAA Tournament Second Round. Courtesy of SU Athletics
Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox. Subscribe to our sports newsletter here.
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Midfielders in lacrosse often don’t get as much shine as alternative positions. A defender will lock down the opponents’ top threats. A draw control specialist helps secure possessions. Attacks find the back of the net.
But a midfielder’s responsibility is to do all three. To contribute in all facets for the betterment of the team.
Syracuse junior Emma Muchnick not only fits into this category. She defines it.
In the Orange’s (10-8, 5-4 Atlantic Coast) 15-9 handling of Brown (10-7, 4-3 Ivy League) Friday, Muchnick scored three first-half goals and produced a tied-for-season-high three draw controls. The contributions allowed SU to pull away from the Bears early to advance to Sunday’s NCAA Tournament Second Round matchup against No. 7 seed Yale.
Postgame, the message from Muchnick was simple: it’s her job to affect the game in all facets.
“Whatever the team needed me to do, I was going to be there to do it,” Muchnick said.
Early on, the Orange needed Muchnick to score. As SU’s defense made a stop on Brown’s opening possession of the game, leading point scorer Emma Ward maneuvered inside but passed up a contested shot to dish outside the 12-meter fan to Muchnick at the top of the key. The junior worked one-on-one with Bears midfielder Rory Rothnie and used a stutter step to dodge left to right.
Muchnick worked her hands free and bounced a shot off the wet turf into the back of the net, throwing her stick into the ground in celebration and giving Syracuse the first lead of the day.
The two sides wrestled back and forth with goals throughout the rest of the first quarter, but Muchnick tallied another with under a minute to go in the opening frame to hand the Orange a 4-3 lead. SU never trailed from that point on. Muchnick’s second goal came in a familiar area: the free position spot.
She’s been effective all year at not only earning free position opportunities but burying them. Muchnick ranks first on Syracuse with 24 attempts. She’s scored 12. With the game knotted at 3-3, Muchnick pushed inside along the baseline, and Brown defender Codi Johnson shoved her to the ground. On her first free position attempt, she was fouled. Her second, she beat Anne Booth in net but was forced to redo the attempt again due to a false start on Booth.
The third time was the charm. She walloped a laser into the top right corner, throwing her stick again, this time over 10 yards to celebrate the score — her 12th multi-goal game of the season.
“She’s good on the line, so I think her energy and excitement certainly fuels other people,” SU head coach Kayla Treanor said of Muchnick on March 19.
2025 has been a breakout campaign for the junior captain. She’s tallied a career-high 34 goals and 39 points, catapulting much further than her freshman year at Maryland or as a sophomore in 2024 with the Orange. Muchnick has also been forced into a larger offensive role after the season-ending injury to Olivia Adamson. Luckily for her, she spent all summer training with the best players in the country for the U.S. women’s U20 National Team in Hong Kong.
Muchnick said she got plenty of attack reps due to the 6-on-6 format. It allowed her to pick up things from her teammates but also work in bigger spaces and two-player systems. The progression in her game resulted in a career-high five-goal outing at Loyola earlier in the season. It’s also gained her national recognition, earning All-ACC First Team honors and a Third Team All-American selection on USA Lacrosse’s list.
So, fast forward to Friday’s contest and Muchnick was already one of the best players on the field. She just needed to execute. During the Orange’s breakout for a 7-1 run in the second quarter to put the game out of reach, Muchnick drilled her third of the game, again from the free position.
Muchnick’s shooting accuracy helped Syracuse build an indestructible lead. SU shot 15-for-20 on shots on goal, with Muchnick going 3-for-4. It’s a facet of her game, and the Orange’s, she says they worked on during the two-week hiatus between the ACC Tournament and Friday’s first-round game.
“That’s something that we struggled with throughout the season in certain games. I think that’s been the reason why we lost a little bit of momentum,” Muchnick said of previous inaccurate shooting. “All week that was kind of the thing we focused on, if we have a chance to score, we’re burying the goal.”
While taking some weight off Ward’s back for scoring, Muchnick also changed the game on the draw. As a wing player, she can make an impact with her speed and grit. She did just that, recording three draw controls in the second quarter alone as the Orange embarked on one of their best frames of the season.
The other element of her game was as a defender. Muchnick acts as a ball hawk at the top of the fan in SU’s zone defense, waiting for any misstep to pounce. As Brown’s Avery Doran flipped a poor pass through the middle of the field, Muchnick quickly ran to the spot and picked it off, streaking the other way to create a scoring chance.
“These are things that we practice a lot, so I pride myself in drilling those things in practice, so I can do them for my team in games too,” Muchnick said. “Honestly, just do whatever I can to help us win.”
Despite national recognition, Muchnick remains the unsung hero of the squad. She’s not the top scoring threat. That’s Ward. She’s not the top defender. Coco Vandiver and Kaci Benoit take that billing. But her ability to impact the game everywhere makes Muchnick a key to the Orange’s success with their season on the line.
And at the most important point, she’s thriving.
