By Michael Wojtychiw

Gwen Ryan has been a staple of Lane Tech girls lacrosse.

The Lane senior has had arguably the most impressive career in the 10-year history of Chicago Public League girls lacrosse. Coming into the city championship game on May 10 at Lane Stadium, Ryan was just three goals shy of 200 career goals.

After Taft took a 1-0 lead just a minute-and-a-half into the game, the Lane defense took over.

The Champions went on a 5-0 run to take control, 5-1 early in the second quarter on Ryan’s 199th career goal, a free-position goal. After Taft would score the next two goals to cut the lead to 5-3, Ryan scored another goal – her 200th – to start another 5-0 run en route to a 10-3 win and the Champions’ seventh city title.

“To do both of these things on the same day, it makes it more special,” Ryan said. “To be able to end on such a strong note, there’s no better feeling.”

After Ryan’s 200th goal made it 6-3 with three-and-a-half minutes remaining before halftime, all her teammates mobbed her on the field, holding up signs congratulating her for her amazing achievement.

“I knew it was going to happen, but it wasn’t something that we really kept track of that much,” Ryan said. “We keep track of assists too and I like that we do that more I think.”

“Gwen is phenomenal,” Lane coach Shelby Cosman said. “She’s meant so much to this program, from encouraging people to join and try out to working hard in the offseason to pushing her teammates to be better.

“She’s so coachable. She loves to pass it to her teammates and get everyone involved.”

After winning the first five city championships since a city playoff was held, Payton took two of the last three titles, including a win last year at Rockne Stadium.

Having that in mind, the Champions, led by Ryan and a host of other seniors, completed a dominant Chicago Public League season, an undefeated one that saw them outscore their CPL opponents 150-24, including the regular season and city playoffs.

“Losing the city championship last year really motivated them from the start ready to go,” Cosman said. “That was their goal the whole season. Make it back and win for our seniors last year and our seniors this year.”

“We came in with so much energy this year,” Ryan said. “We wanted it so badly. We’ve been playing so cohesively, playing as a team, it’s brought us so far.”

Up 7-3 at the half, Lane went on to shut out the Eagles in the second half, forcing nine turnovers and allowing the Eagles to get just two shots off.

“Our defense is beautiful,” Ryan said. “They play so hard, they’re so aggressive, they know what they’re doing.

“It’s so fun to watch as an attacker, it’s so fun to watch our defense thrive.”

“Defense is always the first thing I work on,” the Lane coach said. “We do tryouts, pick our teams and the whole first week of practice is defense-focused. Anyone can score a goal, but not everyone can stop you from scoring a goal.

“We work a lot of crashing, how to play defense without fouling. We pride ourselves on a good defense.”

One thing that helped Lane was a beefed-up, regular-season nonconference schedule. Games against teams like Fremd, Oak Park-River Forest and DePaul Prep, while all losses, helped prepare the Champions for games like these.

But it’s also been the fact that more players are now starting to play travel lacrosse in the offseason.

“It’s helped a lot because whether they’re playing on the highest travel team or they’re just playing local, where they can focus on their individual skills, it helps them coming into the season, so we don’t have to spend weeks getting their stick skills back and things like that,” Cosman said.

“But the biggest thing is it helps with lacrosse IQ. It helps them understand where they should be on the field, what they should be doing and that’s super helpful.”

Both teams saw their seasons end early in the state playoffs.

After defeating Latin in its first playoff game, Lane lost to defending state champion Loyola, while Taft defeated Regina in a regional game before falling to Evanston in its second game.

Sophia LeClaire scored twice for the Eagles, while Virginia Duffy added one as well. Ryan led the Champions with four goals, Natalie Crosby and Sofia Pagones had two each and Audrey Nathaus and Norah Rosenberg had one apiece.

Photos by Zoe Davis/OSA