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When Syracuse trailed at halftime for the first time this season against Notre Dame, the Fighting Irish led the Orange in every statistical category but one: draw controls.

Syracuse dominated the center circle in the first half 10-2 and continued that momentum with a 12-5 second-half draw performance. Notre Dame managed only seven wins, the lowest any team’s had against SU all season. A large part of Syracuse’s success was sophomore Katelyn Mashewske’s 13 draw-control wins, breaking the career-high of 12 that she set just days prior. Her 13 wins were the fourth-most in a single game in program history, and head coach Gary Gait praised Mashewske’s play as a reason Syracuse secured the comeback win.

“I can’t say enough about Katelyn Mashewske on the draw. Another dominant game, 13 draw controls herself, but really allowing our team to dominate on the draws,” Gait said.

Syracuse (7-1, 4-1 Atlantic Coast) sits third in the conference, with 15.88 draw controls per game. In 2019, All-American Emily Hawryschuk took the most draw controls for SU. In 2020, she had the third-most. But without mainstay Hawryschuk, who’s out for the season with an ACL injury, there’s been an opening for others to fill. Mashewske is third in the ACC, with 5.63 draws per game, and Ella Simkins is sixth, with 4.00. Draw specialist Morgan Widner has stepped up, too.

Even without Hawryschuk, SU’s draw controls are at its highest mark since 2017. In the last three seasons, the Orange averaged 15.1 in 2020, 13.8 in 2019 and 13.1 in 2018. Syracuse didn’t have a single player in the ACC top 10 for draw controls in any of those seasons, and now they have two.

“The work that we’ve been putting in is really paying off right now,” Gait said.

But Mashewske wasn’t always SU’s go-to draw control specialist. She had to work her way up the depth chart. She won 11 in her first three games before earning her first career start against Notre Dame on March 11, when she won 12 draws. She won 13 the following game, prompting Gait to call her the “hottest draw control person in the country right now.”

Mashewske was initially recruited as a two-way midfielder, one who could take draws and stay on the field to help the team. It’s a role she played at Rush-Henrietta High School (New York). Head coach Jim DeWald only coached Mashewske during her senior year but was impressed by the amount of time she put into preparing for draws.

“She basically knew when she was going out there what tendencies were from other players,” DeWald said. “However they were setting up against her, she knew pretty much how to counteract that to her advantage.”

When Mashewske started playing lacrosse in fifth grade, she was taller than everyone else on the field and always took draws because “you can’t teach height,” her father, Tim, said. That’s when she started to study the draw, something she’d improve on as she grew older.

“I would say 85 to 90% of the time, (she knows) exactly where that ball is going,” Tim said. “She said she works at it. If she gets beat, I’m her ‘sounding board,’ she’ll call me.”

When Mashewske was younger, Tim remembers going out to the backyard after tough games to go over what went wrong and how she’d get it right next time. Sometimes, they’d spend two minutes in the backyard on an easy fix. Other times, they’d be out until it got dark.

Tim and DeWald point to Mashewske’s time watching film as the root of her development as a draw control specialist. Before SU’s game against No. 1 UNC, Mashewske watched UNC’s top draw specialist in three different games to prepare, Tim said.

Syracuse and North Carolina split 12 draws each in the Orange’s first loss of the season. Mashewske started the game but managed only four wins.

Mashewske hit her first stumbling block against Virginia Tech, just after her career games against Notre Dame. She won five draws, and Gait decided to rotate SU’s draw specialists.

“(She) wasn’t in a rhythm for a couple draws, so we put in Braelie Kempney and Morgan Widner, and they both did very well,” Gait said. “We have a group of four or five players that are draw-takers, and they work every day to improve and get better.”

Simkins also came into that game and recorded a career-high eight draws. And Widner, who’s one of the most experienced members of the draw team, is passing down her knowledge to younger players such as Mashewske. Widner does that with players in the Dallas area when she comes back home to Texas, too, said Molly Ford Hutchinson, Widner’s high school coach.

“She’s able to have all this knowledge about the draw but also give the knowledge to others, so she teaches a lot of the kids back in Dallas,” Hutchinson said.

Like Mashewske, Widner was naturally gifted with height. She also ran the 400-meter in track in high school, which Hutchinson credits for Widner’s speed and quick reactions. Despite all her physical gifts, Widner didn’t have many college offers as late as the fall of her senior year. This spurred Widner to become a true draw specialist, as that’s how she saw herself getting playing time at a school such as Syracuse, Hutchinson said.

By working on her stick skills and wrist action, Widner slowly developed into the draw specialist she is today. It’s also why Gait took a chance on her.

“She was an average lacrosse player, and now, because she’s honed in on this skill, (she) has become one of the best draw takers in the game,” Hutchinson said.

The difference between this year and years prior has been fueled by improved communication, Gait said. After losing a draw, the players huddle together on the sideline and dissect what went wrong and who might have a better shot of winning the next one. The unit — which is comprised of four or five players — communicates well with the players positioned around the circle too, he said.

“They work every day to improve and get better, and they help each other, they support each other,” Gait said.

Published on April 8, 2021 at 12:07 am

Contact Gaurav: gshetty@syr.edu