The sport of lacrosse has always been in Kelsey Murray’s blood. Whether it be through her mom, Kristen, a New Trier coach and three-time All-American in lacrosse, All-Ivy in lacrosse and field hockey and member of the school’s Hall of Fame or her younger sister Lucy, who is a rising junior at New Trier, she has been one with a stick in hand since a young age.

“I started playing organized lax around 7 or 8,” Murray said. “I played other sports growing up too. I did the whole travel soccer thing but for me that became something I was doing because everyone else was doing it. I found I was happiest and what I liked best was playing lacrosse. That grew into soccer fading from my life and I played basketball and field hockey and it was always I had the most fun playing lacrosse. It was right for me.”

Lacrosse also led her to Stanford, a school from which she just graduated with her bachelor’s degree in psychology and is off to study communications in Stanford’s graduate school in the fall. 

“I looked at some other great schools, but when you get an opportunity to go to Stanford, which is, in my opinion, that best combination of athletics and academics in the country, to be a part of that storied athletic program at such a great institution, there’s nothing better,” she said. “The ability to play at such an incredible place, the draw of being able to play in California, where you don’t have snow you have to deal with, that was enticing, especially after coming from our climate, where we had to do tryouts in the New Trier gym, being able to play in my pinnie in January is amazing. It all fell into place for me and I got lucky enough that it all worked out.”

 

The Cardinal are just as happy that Murray chose Stanford, as the rising redshirt senior broke the school’s career points record this year and stands at a total of 225 with one year remaining. Murray stands in third place in career goals with 142 and had career highs in goals with 57, assists with 30 and points (87) during the 2017 season. Her goal and point totals are Stanford single season highs.

“It feels incredible, especially with points,” she said. “Half that is assists, so I’ve been lucky to play with some incredible teammates at Stanford that are also on some of the top lists. it’s awesome and honestly, just looking forward to next year’s team and all the success I hope we’re going to have.”

Murray was granted a fifth year of eligibility duet o the fact that she suffered a season-ending torn ACL in her right knee four games into her sophomore season. While some may use an injury like that as one to mope around and take it easy, Murray embraced the opportunity of being able to watch the game and her teammates from the sidelines and pick up things she may not have noticed before.

“I feel like I was able to get a different perspective and it helped me see the game from a different spot,” she said. “It was almost like looking at it from a coaches lens, being able to see it from the sidelines and being able to see how our plays developed. I really felt like being on the side, I learned a lot from being able to talk to players and coaches and see it from a wider angle.”

Before she heads back to Palo Alto though, she’s taking part in Nike’s internship program in Eugene, Oregon, for a second consecutive year. While not knowing what she wants to do once she finishes her education, working on the brand innovation team the past two years has given her an idea of what she may like to pursue.

“They also do an intern project called the Intern Combine Project,” she stated. “They pull together interns from different departments and backgrounds and have us work on one of Nike’s business problems, which is associated with their department called Global Community Impact. It basically services the communities that Nike is involved in. we have a packed summer but it’s awesome.”

After missing out on the NCAA Tournament in 2017, the Cardinal will look to Murray to help it return to the postseason in 2018.

“I’m excited because we have a lot of freshman attackers coming in and I’m excited to have some young energy up there and it’s going to help revitalize our team for an NCAA run next year.”

Story published July 3, 2017