Murphy Discusses Background, Team's Midway Point of the Season

CINCINNATI -- As the Cincinnati lacrosse team crosses its halfway point of the season, we checked in with sophomore attacker Elizabeth Murphy about her background and the first two years of her collegiate career. 

Murphy, a native of Lynbrook, N.Y., leads the Bearcats with 10 assists to go with seven goals after having one assist as a freshman on a veteran team of fifth- and sixth-year members.

UC hits the road this weekend for Friday and Sunday contests at Butler and Robert Morris, respectively.

Did you grow up playing lacrosse your whole life, and has playing at the collegiate level always been a goal?
"I am from Long Island (NY.), which is a big lacrosse hub. It has always been known as a hub. I am the youngest of four. My oldest brother started playing, then my sister, other brother and me. I grew up playing and I started playing in kindergarten. I didn't start playing games until second grade. So, I have been playing my whole life. I didn't really know I wanted to play collegiately until middle school. I started playing travel, and travel is where you get recruited. Then it all went from there."

After being a freshman last year, did you expect to have a bigger role on the team this year?
"I didn't want to expect anything. I feel like each of us have a different role on the team and roles change all the time. I was taking whatever the coaches gave me. Even if it was not playing as much, you must work hard to prove that you can play and be with everyone. I didn't really expect anything coming in."

What did you learn and take away from last year's seniors and season that you are using for your game this year?
"Last year was a lot of learning. All the seniors were so experienced. There were some fifth-year seniors and Sam Mlkvy was a sixth-year senior. There was so much to watch and learn from, and I have been able to take what I have learned from them and apply it to now. Being with Kylie Nause helped, too, because she has so much experience, as well as being able to see the game from different perspectives and how they played last year and applying it to this year. For example, how Monica (Borzillo) was able to drive, or how Gianna (Napoletano) was able to catch in the middle. There are different things that everyone brought to the table. I was able to take a piece from each of them to move onto this year."

What did you practice and work on last off-season, that has helped you succeed this season?
"I worked more on my dodges and my footwork to be a little bit quicker, so that I could be more dynamic and be able to feed the ball, because that is my favorite thing to do. Sometimes it is not always going to work, so I feel like I needed to be more dynamic to help in any way I could."

At the mid-point of this season, what do you think has been a team strength and what does the team need to focus on for the ladder half of the season.
"I think that we have improved so much. We have all the pieces, and the pieces are coming together, but it is just taking more time. I think that the more that we play together, the more chemistry that is being built. We have improved and (head coach) Gina always talks about playing a full 60 minutes. I think that we are getting to that point. We have improved so much on both sides of the ball too. For conference play we must play a full 60 minutes because we are in a tough conference. We need to focus to get the outcome that we want."