When Elon University’s women’s lacrosse team takes the field this season, the team is led by senior captain Gillian Curran.
Over the past three years, Curran has scored 30 goals and 50 total points in 35 games. She saw significant playing time as soon as she arrived at Elon, starting all 18 of Elon’s games as a freshman, and every game since she joined the team. In her junior year, she ranked ninth in the Colonial Athletic Association in assists and draw controls per game, and fourth on the team in goals scored, including four hat tricks over the course of the season.
After being part of the team for the past three years, Curran said she is ready to take on a more prominent role as a captain of the team as they make a push to win conference this year.
Curran credited much of her on-field success to a strong relationship with head coach Josh Hexter.
“Josh’s always been very supportive of me,” Curran said. “He knows how to push me and what ways to motivate me, so that has been very beneficial.”
Curran said she’s also learned a lot about what it takes to be a leader on the field from some of last year’s seniors that helped her to develop as a player, giving a lot of credit to them for pushing her to become a better player and teammate.
Now, Curran is in a position to pass along her experience to some of the newer members of the team. She will be leading a roster that has over half of its players comprised of freshmen and sophomores, which will make her role as captain even more important as new players look to learn Elon’s systems and build strong practice habits.
“Being positive has been a huge thing for me and pushing my teammates,” Curran said. “Just showing them the culture of our team and knowing that it’s not a selfish game and that we can play together, that's what’s gonna make us successful.”
As they prepared for this season, bonding off the field played a big role.
“Every day over break, we would have these like little texts. We would text each other and make sure that everyone was doing their part this offseason to be the best version of yourself when you got back to campus,” Curran said. “Just making sure we are connected while we're not together and making sure everyone was doing their part.”
Curran was a sophomore when the lacrosse team had its season cut short by COVID-19, and said the experience changed her mindset on the game.
“I’ve been really trying to stay positive with everything and play every game like it could be taken away from us at any time,” Curran said.
Aside from being able to finish the season this year, Curran’s goals are to win conference for the first time and to end her lacrosse career at Elon with a bang.
Through the team’s first four games this season, Curran has scored 14 of the team’s 41 goals. The team continues its season with a game March 5 against Furman University.