Hokie ClubEditor's note: We caught up with midfielder Mary Claire Byrne this weekend at Elite Camp held on campus in Blacksburg. The redshirt senior reflected on her summer exploits, the historic 2018 season, leading the Hokies into the 2019 season and her sister Julia, one of the newest Hokies.
Byrne, a three-time letter winner and a captain of the Hokies, started all 21 contests during the 2018 season. She scored 27 points on the season, including a career-best 17 goals. The midfielder also caused 32 turnovers, the second most in the conference. Byrne was also included on the ACC's All-Academic team for the second consecutive season.
Q: What has your summer consisted of so far?
BYRNE: "I'm working an internship with Sirius XM PGA Tour in DC and I'm working producing for them. I basically help out the head producer or I'm the AP (assistant producer). I mostly work in the mornings and we produce the morning shows. I'll do play-by-play coverage on the weekends. I'm not playing summer league lacrosse but I've been out with my siblings playing with them and training, lifting and running to stay in shape. Whenever I can, I go to the beach, Bethany Beach in Delaware."
Q: Have you taken time to reflect on the historic 2018 season and what was your favorite moment?
BYRNE: "When we were coming back from NCAA's it was cool to see that when we came back, school was over and no one else was here but we were still playing. That was the coolest part about it because usually we're done before school ends and we have a couple of days to hang out, but it was fun to be able to play after school ended. My favorite moment was beating Georgetown so we could advance to the next round of the NCAA's."
Q: Having set the standard for Virginia Tech lacrosse in the last few seasons, what are some of the challenges of continuing that success in 2019?
BYRNE: "We're losing a good bit of our starters, especially on defense and I think the biggest challenge is developing the freshmen and the underclassmen and just making sure that they can fill the roles of those girls."
Q: As the captain and leader of the program which has a lot of young players that will play significant roles, how do you help them adapt to college lacrosse and Coach Sung's style?
BYRNE: "I think it starts this summer now getting in touch with them, making sure they are doing the workout packets and pushing themselves not just going through the motions. You need to work hard to the point where you're exhausted after a workout. I think it starts now with building relationships in the summer going into the fall so that they respect you and I can have relationships with them and be able to talk to them, and just help them adapt to college and college lacrosse because it's so much different than high school."
Q: There is a familiar face coming to Blacksburg in the fall, your younger sister Julia is joining the squad, what can you tell us about her, how she plays and her decision to join Hokie Nation?
BYRNE: "I'm really excited, we've never played lacrosse together. We went to different high schools so we never played with each other, we played against each other last fall in the one fall ball game but I'm super excited to have her on campus but also have her on the field. For me, having a sibling out there makes me push them harder and have them push me harder just because I feel like I can talk to them in any way. If I need to stay after for extra reps, I know that if I ask her to do it, she'll do it, so in that respect I'm super excited to have someone like that on my side. She's an attacker, we lost a couple attackers last year so I'm hoping that she'll be able to be on the field next to me this year and we can assist each other's goals."