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

At her brother’s soccer tournament in Philadelphia, an 8-year-old Alyssa Manley played with a toy knife.

The blade, a wooden one from her play fruit set, caught the attention of one of her brother’s friends. Watching her slash at a nearby tree with the knife, he compared her to a tiny machete.

Manley’s two older brothers quickly started calling her “Machete,” before eventually shortening it to “Shed.” When Manley joined SU’s field hockey team in 2012, the moniker followed her.

“It really highlights her as a player,” Manley’s former teammate Liz Sack said of her nickname. “She was like a ninja, like lethal. The speed at which she saw the game, whether you were capable of playing that quickly or not, you were going to learn real quick how to do it.”

On Friday, Manley will become the second SU field hockey player to have her jersey retired. The banner displaying her No. 5 will be raised at J.S. Coyne Stadium next to Julie Williamson’s No. 9, which was retired in 2022. Manley starred in Syracuse’s midfield, racking up 18 goals and 24 assists across her four-year career. After earning Third-Team All-American honors in 2013, Manley was named to the First Team in 2014.

In 2015, she led Syracuse to a national championship, giving the university its first — and only — Division I women’s national title. She again earned a spot on the All-American First Team, won the ACC Defensive Player of the Year and was named the Honda Award Recipient, given to the nation’s top collegiate field hockey player. Ange Bradley, her coach at SU, compared the honor to Ernie Davis’ Heisman-winning 1961 season.

“She stands right up there with the male legends at Syracuse,” Bradley said. “It makes me proud that I could be a small part of her process.”

During the 2015 national title game, Alyssa Manley surveys the field in front of her as her stick dangles at her side. Manley finished her SU career with 18 goals and 24 assists while providing defensive support in the midfield. Courtesy of Jess Jecko

Manley’s legacy as one of SU’s best ever athletes is unquestioned. But her path there wasn’t straightforward.

When she began looking for colleges, Manley didn’t know what she wanted. By the time she entered senior year at Warwick High School (Pennsylvania), she only knew she wanted to avoid the southern heat.

Bradley was scouting the area at the time, but she didn’t find Manley until she got a call from one of her former players, Heather Hess. Hess described the Warwick standout as a “late bloomer,” but convinced Bradley to pursue her.

Once she took her official visit, Manley’s decision was easy.

“Being at Syracuse, it just felt right,” Manley said. “I’m very much a gut feeling person, and it felt very comfortable there.”

Manley’s first year with the Orange brought immediate success. Syracuse went 17-2 during the regular season before advancing to the Final Four, falling to No. 1 seed North Carolina. Bradley said Manley played a key reserve role, sidling in and out of the starting lineup while playing in the midfield and on the backline.

Off the field, it was more of a struggle. Being away from home weighed on Manley, and Bradley said she even considered transferring to Division II Millersville, a small public university less than an hour away from Warwick.

In the end, Manley stuck with the Orange.

“Alyssa will be the first one to say it’s not about her,” Bradley said. “She has and had a really great support system around her, in her family, her teammates and her coaches.”

Her teammates Jess Jecko and Emma Russell were part of that support system. As roommates in Shaw Hall, the three quickly grew close as freshmen. After one away game, the three returned to Shaw to find a plate of donuts in the dorm lounge.

The three gobbled them down without hesitation, leaving before anyone caught them.

“We just attacked them. We had powdered sugar all over our faces,” Manley said while laughing. “It was just all the stuff that we would do together as teammates.”

Jecko said that eating the donuts led to their relationship blossoming. That bond ultimately helped power SU’s national championship three years later. As freshmen, the three dreamed weekly of winning that title together, pretending to be interviewed after each game.

“It was something we visualized for years and spoke about for years, and when times were hard, the three of us came back together and thought about why we were doing this,” Russell said. “We didn’t shy away from our dreams at all, and we were always there to push each other.”

The following year, the three became more inseparable. They continued to live together and also grew close with Sack, who graduated a year after the trio and roomed with them during her visit.

Sack recalled how comfortable she felt with the trio and said it was the first time she felt “truly at home” at a school. She hadn’t spoken to many people on any of her other visits, but she immediately opened up after Manley offered her a bowl of Kraft Easy Mac following a tough day at a clinic. The two bonded while sharing the bowl, marking the start of their close friendship.

“The three of them are like the three horsemen of field hockey to me,” Sack said. “To play with them, I feel like it totally changed my hockey trajectory as an individual.”

Alyssa Manley embraces her teammates Emma Russell and Liz Sack after downing North Carolina to capture the 2015 National Championship. Manley totaled 15 points in 1,427 minutes during the program-defining season. Courtesy of Jess Jecko

With Sack in the fold, Manley and Syracuse put together another strong regular season. Carrying lofty expectations after their Final Four appearance, Michigan State stunned the Orange in the first round. Manley took the loss personally, telling her coach that she needed the offseason to reset.

“Angie, I’m sort of burned out,” Manley told her. “I’m not having fun. I’m going to go to Ireland. I’ll play, and it doesn’t mean I don’t like hockey, but I just need a break, and I’ll be ready when the season comes along.”

As a former player herself at Delaware, Bradley understood where Manley was coming from. She trusted that the time spent in Ireland, where Manley still lives today, would help her development ahead of the following season.

“She never let the highs get too high and the lows get too low,” Bradley said. “I think a lot of today’s athletes could learn from her quite a bit in how failure can be success if I keep working and believing in myself.”

That year, a reinvigorated Manley led Syracuse to the 2014 National Championship game. Jecko said it was an emotional season, as Manley battled what she described as an ankle that wasn’t broken but “might as well have been” while Russell played with a broken nose.

Still nursing her ankle, Manley scored the sudden-death winner in a shootout during Syracuse’s Final Four matchup with North Carolina, setting the Orange up to face UConn in the final. When Syracuse lost in a narrow 1-0 defeat, Jecko said the team had mixed feelings.

“It hurt really bad, but also, we were extremely proud of the program, because it was the first time we ever went to the national championship,” Jecko said. “ We knew that we’d be back.”

That offseason, Manley took her mind off the loss by playing for the United States in the Pan Am games, scoring the game-winner in the semifinal en route to a gold medal.

After claiming gold, Manley refocused on her goal of becoming a national champion at Syracuse. With another year of development, Manley and the Orange were poised to do what they couldn’t in 2014.

“After we lost that national championship game the year before, we watched them celebrate,” Jecko said. “Seeing another team celebrate and win a national championship, you don’t really need much motivation after that to go back in 2015 and win it all.”

It all came together that year. The three led Syracuse to an undefeated regular season, with Manley acting as the heartbeat of its midfield. The only loss they suffered was in the ACC Tournament to North Carolina.

Syracuse then set out to exorcise its demons from 2014. First, it downed UConn in the Final Four. Next was a rematch with the Tar Heels in the title game. But Manley and the Orange weren’t satisfied.

“They just had this quiet perseverance,” Bradley said. “It was like the little trains who could. They just kept believing and kept growing.”

It had snowed 18 inches the night before the championship. Despite the frigid conditions, Syracuse’s offense started hot, heading into the second half with a 2-0 lead.

Even when North Carolina equalized, the Orange remained calm. Manley said the team huddled up to reset, and they came out determined to stop the Tar Heels.

Three minutes later, Syracuse had reclaimed its two-goal lead. The clock finally hit zero. It’d finally done it.

National champions.

“We believed so much in ourselves that we would do it,” Manley said. “It was just something that we wouldn’t leave Syracuse without winning. That wasn’t an option for us.”

Syracuse’s 2015 title squad poses for a photo after the win, with Manley and Emma Russell raising the trophy in the center. With players like Russell, Liz Sack and Jess Jecko, Manley formed strong bonds, leading to her success. Courtesy of Jess Jecko

After the win, Manley embraced Jecko and Russell at midfield, celebrating with her teammates after years of ups and downs.

“It’s still one of the best days of my life,” Russell said. “When we were flying back to Syracuse, I think that’s the moment it really hit. I distinctly remember getting off the plane, walking back through the terminal holding the trophy, and people started clapping and cheering us on.”

That summer, Manley rejoined the United States field hockey team for the 2016 Olympics, where the squad placed fifth in Rio de Janeiro. Manley had to defer her spring semester to join the team, missing out on graduating with Jecko and Russell. But the risk paid off.

She received her diploma the following spring. When she finally walked across the stage, a year after Jecko and Russell, she did it as a national champion, a Pan Am gold medalist and an Olympian.

“It was weird not being there with Emma and Jess, getting photos on (J.S. Coyne Stadium) with them and getting to celebrate,” Manley said. “Missing out on that kind of stuff was definitely bittersweet, but I was cheering for them from Lancaster, far away.”

Now, a decade later, Manley will be reunited with the 2015 team, the program’s top squad ever.

The players remain inseparable. Whether it’s through weddings or just catching up over a meal, the bonds they formed 10 years ago are still as strong as they were when they were created. Perhaps even stronger.

Manley was at the forefront of that trend. Without them, Manley said, she never would have accomplished everything that she did. While she’s glad to have forged an individual legacy with her jersey retirement, she said the entire team is what made winning the national championship special.

“I’m really honored that they selected to retire my jersey,” Manley said. “It was a team effort in the end, so I’m really happy that it’s been honored along with the 2015 team because I think what we accomplished as a team is incredible.”

Published on September 25, 2025 at 12:21 am
Contact Henry: hdaley@syr.edu | @henrydaleyy