One in an occasional series.
Shortly after 1 p.m., today, the Duke women’s lacrosse season ended with a 15-9 loss to Boston College in the quarterfinal round of the ACC Tournament.
As the Blue Devils have an 8-10 record, they are ineligible for selection to the NCAA Division I Tournament.
And thus ends the playing career of the most prolific draw-taker in NCAA history, Maddie Jenner. The titan is a record-holder for draws in a season (233) and a career (791). While you can argue that the career number is inflated because of the COVID year, she also had to play her freshman season as not the primary draw specialist; that role fell to her sister Olivia, then a senior.
Jenner was so dominant on the draws, the reactions to it were almost comical. Parents would complain that the rules needed to be changed so that a 6-foot-2 athlete couldn’t win as many draws as she did, keeping whichever side she was playing for off the ball for long stretches of the game.
Perhaps, she was at the height of her powers when she was the center for the United States U-19 World Cup team in 2019. In this environment, she was an Everest in Kansas. Winning the draw, primarily to herself, she was like Paul Bunyan, Babe Ruth, Trevor Baptiste, and Lisa Leslie rolled up into one.
She gave the U.S. immediate control of the ball after goals and kept the opposing team from having the ball for huge stretches of games. That U.S. team won every one of their seven games by a minimum of eight goals. Jenner’s 61 draw controls were a major part of that effort.
At Duke, she did not enjoy that kind of dominant success. The Blue Devils never made a Final Four while she was a player at Duke, but the team made a couple of deep playoff runs in 2021 and 2022, only to run into Northwestern and Maryland, respectively, to end their seasons.
As is the case with many senior women’s lacrosse players, the path forward for Maddie Jenner is unpredictable. She could follow her sister into the world of big-city finance. She could find her passion in coaching. She could follow her ambitions into the medical field. Or she could take advantage of any of the professional women’s lacrosse opportunities which seem to be burbling up all over the landscape.
Whatever she does, I’m certain success will follow.
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