Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox. Subscribe to our sports newsletter here.

Molly Guzik isn’t snapped out of her zone easily.

When she practices alone, she writes defenders’ names, times and scores onto the ball, Monster Elite Lacrosse coach Ronnie Davis said. While Davis does paperwork at the facility, which Guzik has a key to, he jokes that he fears embarrassing her by asking, “What’s the score?”

At Guzik’s kitchen countertop back home in Spencerport, New York, she’s often glued to her computer. Her father, Bill Guzik, hesitates to speak, fearing his daughter’s retaliation. When he peers at Guzik’s computer, he sees a men’s box lacrosse game. Or a Hall of Famer, John Grant Jr., mixtape. But most of the time, it’s her own film she wants to learn from.

When she watches her freshman year film from last season, Guzik notices she played scared and found lacrosse unenjoyable. Guzik said she was subbed out for every mistake.

After stepping foot on the Ensley Athletic Center turf last fall, it hit her. Guzik finally had coaches who understood her. New head coach Regy Thorpe and assistants Nicole Levy and Emma Ward have untapped Guzik’s arsenal. After coming off the bench last season, she’s become Syracuse’s leading scorer with 27 goals through 11 games and serves as its draw specialist.

As her trainer, TJ DeMartino, put it, Thorpe’s trust felt like a 20-pound boulder being lifted off her back.

“It didn’t really feel like the lacrosse I’ve known to play,” Guzik said, reflecting on last season.

Under Thorpe, Guzik can work in isolation and flaunt behind-the-back shots, she said. If she slips up, she’s guaranteed to have a full 60 minutes to pick her head up and correct herself.

From the outset, after the Orange’s season-opening loss to Maryland, Thorpe praised Guzik’s independent, relaxed style and everything snowballed from there.

“Everyone’s like, ‘Oh, the kid went 1-for-10. What the hell,’” Davis said. “As a coach, give me a kid in the first game of the season to shoot the ball 10 times.”

Molly Guzik smiles with Spencerport High School head coach Tara Pittman. After a strong career with the Rangers, Guzik was ranked as the nation’s No. 11 recruit by Inside Lacrosse. Courtesy of Tara Pittman

Playing for 3D Common Goal and her Spencerport squads in middle school, Guzik transcended everyone. As Bill put it, she hit a wall where she couldn’t grow much further. Guzik played for the neighboring Greece team but not much changed.

However, things escalated with Monster. When she first ventured to the facility, Davis asked Guzik why she changed clubs. Guzik said she wanted to play with the best. Davis chuckled and told Guzik she lacked the ego of the best.

Guzik didn’t develop the needed confidence overnight. First, she sat deep on the midfield depth chart.

“Lacrosse didn’t feel the same as it always has. It wasn’t fun,” Guzik said. “I was overthinking a lot. Every mistake, every single pass, every shot.”

DeMartino, who specializes in helping athletes’ mentality, met Guzik during her senior year of high school. DeMartino noticed Guzik’s mixed signals from last year’s SU coaches and endeavored to eliminate her rigidity.

“You got to learn how to let it go and just get back to the fun of the game and that freestyle mentality,” he said.

Guzik flourishes out of structure, when she’s running all over the place. Watching a Syracuse game, you can’t possibly miss her — unless she sprints by in the blink of an eye.

In 2019, her lacrosse-focused trainer, Shannon Brinson, was at a Spencerport game to observe his senior client and future Northwestern great Erin Coykendall. He squinted. Not at Coykendall, but a little seventh grader playing up on varsity, sprinting at light speed.

“Yo, who is that?” Brinson said. “The person I was standing next to was, like, ‘That’s Molly Guzik. I’ll get you in contact with her father.’”

Brinson and Guzik have trained since the COVID-19 pandemic, rewiring shot mechanics, strength and first-step quickness.

This past offseason, Guzik awoke at dawn every day and made homemade bread and eggs with a Greek yogurt bowl. She’d then compile several thousand reps of wall ball and study film for hours. She hit the hay early every night, exhausted from the film.

“I don’t know if I’ve had a player watch as much film as she does,” Thorpe said. “She’s a student of the game. She’s a lax rat.”

In eighth grade, Brinson tossed Guzik tennis balls as she laid down to help bolster her frame taking draws or knocked her over to fix her balance to help her prepare her for college lacrosse.

Her preparations were ratcheted up another level with the 2024 Monster Elite squad, ranked the No. 1 club. Her future Orange teammate Bri Peters and Maryland’s Devin Livingston flanked her in the midfield. The team had such highly-touted prospects that four schools, including SU, visited Guzik and three of her teammates’ at their houses when recruiting opened on Sept. 1, 2022.

“It’s the first time I remember anyone showing up at houses in 10-15 years,” Monster coach Craig Chamberlain said.

While her confidence rode sky-high with Monster, Guzik and Spencerport couldn’t recreate the same success, where her teams hovered around .500 during her tenure. Despite that, Guzik amassed 221 goals and a program-record 469 draw controls in her career. The key was her film study. Spencerport head coach Tara Pittman was impressed Guzik compiled her own clip list.

If things weren’t clicking, it wasn’t a guarantee she’d see the field for extended periods of time. After all, Syracuse had crowded midfield and draw control groups with too many mouths to feed. Guzik never started in 19 games.

“Coaches told her five different things,” DeMartino said. “Molly’s got a really good bullsh-t.”

That meant Guzik always went with the flow and rarely complained. As a freshman, it was hard to be complacent with her role, but she embraced it. Last year’s coaches opted for experienced starting midfielders from past Final Four runs.

On the scoresheet, where Guzik ranked eighth for the Orange with 14 goals, it seemed she played a major role. But in the last five games of the season, she only mustered one shot on goal.

“I would get down on myself,” Guzik said. “I’d be scared to play my game the way I want to play.”

Zoey Grimes | Design Editor

When she met Thorpe and his staff this offseason, she noticed their relaxed demeanor. Seeing Ward, a former teammate in an unofficial coaching position, was another assurance. Now, they often bounce ideas off each other as Ward tweaks Guzik’s game.

Guzik’s freshman-to-sophomore growth seemed out of left field, but Davis said it made sense. Guzik was Inside Lacrosse’s No. 11 recruit in 2024, and her switch from midfield to attack this year opened the door for a breakout. He described it as Syracuse-esque, saying only Thorpe or Gary Gait could enact it.

The results have been impressive. Look at her six goals against then-No. 4 Northwestern. Or her lacing an impeccable assist across No. 20 Virginia’s crease.

“What you’re seeing now is who I’ve been seeing for the last four years. It’s not a shock to me,” Brinson said. “Finally, she’s able to play lacrosse and not have to think, not have to worry about getting pulled. She could just go play and be Molly.”

After SU upset then-No. 6 Yale on March 17, Guzik spotted a couple dozen girls decked in matching grey and blue sweatshirts with fatheads of her face. It was Pittman and Guzik’s former Spencerport teammates, who made the hour-plus schlep to the JMA Wireless Dome to support their esteemed alum. The sophomore embraced Pittman, who was on the verge of tears.

Guzik doesn’t think about tears. She never shed any, even in last year’s melancholic patches. All Guzik needed was the freedom that let her keep shooting, even when she failed, to turn her subtle smile into a gleam.

She squints at the sideline before every opening draw. Her teammates repetitively chant her name, and she locks eyes with her coaches.

At last, she’s free. Free to play her lacrosse.

“It’s a mindset flip,” Guzik said. “(The SU coaches) give you all the confidence that you need as a player. Anything and everything that you could want as a player.”

Published on March 26, 2026 at 1:10 am
Contact Jason: jaglick@syr.edu | @jason_glick