Field Hockey, Swimming
Favorite athlete: Ryan Lochte
Favorite team: Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: Winning District One title in field hockey and making it to states in swimming
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Junior year field hockey season my coach put me in on offense toward the end of the game, and my teammates kept feeding me the ball so that I could score, and eventually I did after being directed to every spot on the field by my teammates just to get open for the ball.
Music on iPod: Pump-up music
Future plans: To attend Loyola Maryland University and swim on the varsity team
Words to live by: ‘Positive results come from a lot of work and a little bit of luck.’
One goal before turning 30: To make it to the Olympic Trials
One thing people don’t know about me: I love Winnie the Pooh
Laurie Hug can still remember her first introduction to senior Liz McKenna three years ago.
“I was coaching the boys’ team her freshman year, and she came right up to me and introduced herself,” said Hug, who is now the Wissahickon girls’ swimming coach. “For a freshman girl to go up to the boys’ coach and do that – she really has a good presence about her.”
That presence is just part of what sets the Wissahickon senior apart. One year after Hug’s introduction to McKenna, she was the star of her Trojan squad, accumulating the most points over the course of the season and earning team MVP honors.
Not a whole lot has changed since that time. McKenna, who was MVP of her team as a junior as well, is a two-time league title holder in the 100 backstroke – her stroke of choice, and she broke the Upper Dublin pool record en route to last year’s league crown.
Last year, McKenna finished fifth in districts in the 100 back and earned a spot in states. This year McKenna finished seventh to medal at districts and once again earned a berth in the state meet.
“She’s awesome,” Hug said. “She’s a really positive girl, and everybody loves her.
“She’s very outgoing, and she cheers for everybody. She leads by example, and she works as hard as anybody or harder.”
The senior captain has turned her talents to a swimming scholarship to Loyola University in Maryland. Not a bad ending for a swimmer whose start at the age of four suggested that racing might not be in her future.
“I was a very nervous swimmer,” she said. “I would get very nervous.
“They would use a gun, and I never liked loud noises. For some reason, I would overwork myself mentally, and I would get so scared that I would just break down crying and I would just get thrown in the pool.
“I’d swim a lap, and I’d be like, ‘Oh yeah, that was great,’ and then do it all over again. During races at that age, they would give you a pat on the butt, and you would know you had to jump in the water and swim a lap.”
The backstroke – when McKenna didn’t have to start on the blocks – didn’t evoke a similar response.
“For the backstroke, I never cried when I was starting already in the water,” she said. “I guess I just always liked backstroke and kept on going with it and developed the skill where it actually took me somewhere.”
While there’s no arguing that McKenna is an accomplished swimmer, she’s also had herself quite a career on the hockey field as well. McKenna was a four-year varsity player for a Trojan squad that has dominated play in the SOL American Conference and – when McKenna was a junior - captured the District One AAA title.
McKenna was a fixture in the Trojans’ defensive backfield.
“She has a very natural modesty, and that modesty really came through as a player because she wasn’t selfish,” assistant coach Shelly Meier said. “She wasn’t someone who was going to hold onto the ball if she shouldn’t.
“She was really integral especially in trying to get our (transition) down. We needed to be able to trust her, which we did. She’s a very strong player. She’s on her toes, and she’s that brick wall for you.
“If she wasn’t such a swimmer, we certainly would have been able to get her to play some field hockey (at the collegiate level). She’s a well-rounded player.”
A captain of both her hockey and swimming squads, McKenna is a natural leader.
“She’s just nice, and she likes to be around people,” Meier said. “Sports is a very social thing for her, and she was great at being social but being serious when necessary, and that made her a great captain because she brought a less serious side to it.”
McKenna got her first taste of hockey as a youngster attending WRA clinics at Montco, and her competitive swimming career began with WCAC Aquatic Club. When she reached high school, the scheduling conflicts began.
“I would have a tournament for field hockey on Saturday, but I would have swimming practice on Saturday morning,” McKenna said.
She opted to give up playing indoor hockey with her high school team.
Still, she wasn’t sure that swimming at the collegiate level would be part of her future until her junior season.
“It was very difficult,” she said. “I have a great passion for both swimming and field hockey.
“It came down to last year when I saw myself really excelling personally in swimming. Last year was the first time I placed in districts – I got a medal and had the opportunity to go to states. I saw what I could do.”
Opting to devote herself to swimming didn’t diminish McKenna’s love for hockey.
“The one thing I loved passionately about field hockey was the team (aspect) and working together as a team,” she said. “I liked the whole – you do it together, you win together and you lose together.
“Swimming is more of an individual sport until you get down to the relays.”
McKenna especially valued her relationship to her fellow seniors – Gretchen Guaglianone, Lauren Becker and Zoe Kale.
“The four of us all really connected with the team, and I had a great experience,” she said.
Despite her involvement in hockey – which meant that McKenna did not swim in the fall, she was able to elevate herself to elite status in the pool. She was first team all-league in the 100 back the past three years after earning second team honors as a freshman. This year she finished third in the 100 free in leagues.
“She’s not a year-round swimmer, and she’s competing against these girls that are swimming year round,” Hug said. “She plays hockey in the fall and in the summer she went to Europe.
“She’s not just about swimming.”
Next year, McKenna, who has been involved with US Swimming the past two years, will focus all her energy on swimming when she takes her talents to Loyola, which won out over a list that also included Scranton, Bloomsburg, Susquehanna and Montclair.
An honors student, McKenna is undecided on a major.
“I can’t wait to experience a whole new level of swimming,” she said. “To have a new coach and see his perspective of what I can do and what he can coach me to be able to do at the college level is exciting.
“To know I’ll be entering a whole new team and seeing what new relationships I can develop with my teammates – it’s all around very exciting.”
For now, McKenna is enjoying her final days with teammates Rachel Bohr, Carrie Johnson and Ali McClure.
“We have been swimming together forever,” McKenna said. “We’re a very close-knit team, and if I didn’t have these girls, it would be a much harder time going through those practices.
“Swimming is a whole other team type bonding. You really become more than just friends. You push each other in practice, you become competitors, you become your own coaches – we give each other pointers, and just to have the support of those teammates really helps.
“I don’t think I would love swimming as much as I do without a team like that. It has a great effect.”
Although competing in two sports at such a high level allows for very little spare time, McKenna is looking forward to working with youngsters at the WCAC stroke clinic this spring. During the summer she lifeguards and helps coach at Cedarbrook. She also is part of Wissahickon’s FANS Club, a club that supports the school’s sports teams.
“As an athlete, I love to have people come out and cheer us on, and I try to do the same for all my friends who play different sports because I know how that feels,” McKenna said. “You play much better when you have people cheering for you. It’s brought so much school spirit. It’s been great.”
McKenna is one student-athlete who has gotten her money’s worth out of her high school experience and then some.
“It’s pretty awesome that as an athlete I could perform to the best of my ability in two different sports – one on land and one in water,” McKenna said. “I’m really grateful for having the coaches I have and did have in the past and how they developed me as an athlete. It’s been great.”
