A pair of Humphrey sisters, Ashley and Chloe, were former Darien High School lacrosse stars who had superb seasons to help lead the University of North Carolina to the NCAA Division I national championship and an undefeated 22-0 season.
The Humphreys were both attackers and North Carolina’s top two team leaders in points for the season. Ashley led the team with 121 points and Chloe racked up 90 goals among her 118 points.
Chloe scored four goals and had an assist and while Ashley had four assists when the top-seeded North Carolina Tar Heels defeated No. 3 seed Northwestern, 12-8, in the championship game of the 2025 NCAA Division I Women’s Lacrosse Tournament on May 25 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass.
Chloe, who had seven goals in North Carolina’s impressive 20-4 semifinal victory over No. 4 seed Florda, was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. Ashley joined her on the All-Tournament Team.
Chloe Humphrey’s 11 combined goals in the semifinal and championship games capped off a season so great for the redshirt freshman that she won the Tewaaraton Award which is awarded to the best women’s college lacrosse player.
There were three Humphrey sisters who were Tar Heels as Nicole Humphrey, a midfielder as a graduate student and the eldest sister, began the trend of Humphreys becoming UNC Tar Heels.
The Humphrey sisters were three of the five former Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference players who were national champions as Tar Heels this year.
Former New Canaan star Kaleigh Harden had a very good year and Addie Pattillo, who excelled in high school as a Wilton Warrior last year, earned plenty of playing time and had solid season as a sniping attacker off the bench.
There were three more former players from the FCIAC who made key contributions toward helping their respective teams advance to the semifinals of the NCAA tournament: Boston College’s Shea Dolce (Darien) and Devon Russell (New Canaan), and Florida’s Georgia Hoey (Fairfield Ludlowe).
Dolce had such a great junior season for the 19-3 Boston College Eagles that she was acknowledged as the best goalie in the country and was a First-Team All-American on three All-American teams.
In four of the previous five high school girls’ lacrosse seasons, Russell and Harden of New Canaan, and Darien’s Chloe Humphrey and Ashley Humphrey were named the state’s Player of the Year by GameTimeCT.
Russell was last year’s selection, Chloe Humphrey in 2023, Harden in 2022, and Ashley Humphrey in 2019. And the state’s Player of the Year in 2021 happened to be Harden’s older sister, McKenna, who graduated from UNC in 2024 and played in 18 games as a graduate student at Vanderbilt this past season.
Chloe Humphrey redshirted last season and made quite the impact on Division I women’s college lacrosse. She became North Carolina’s first winner of the Tewaaraton Award which is recognized as the preeminent lacrosse award honoring the top female and male college lacrosse players in the United States.
Chloe received her award at the Tewaaraton Foundation Banquet at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C. on May 29, one day after she was named the Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association Player of the Year.
The IWLCA selects four Division I positional Players of the Year and Chloe was also named the IWLCA Attacker of the Year. Chloe and her sister Ashley were the 12th and 13thTewaaraton finalists in UNC history and Chloe was the first women’s freshman finalist in the award’s history.
Chloe averaged 4.09 goals per game with her 90 goals and added 28 assists for 118 points. Chloe scored at least five goals in nine games and had a hat trick in 18 of North Carolina’s 22 games.
The 90 goals she fired in became the new NCAA record for goals in one season by a freshman, and North Carolina’s school record for single-season goals. Chloe was also the MVP of the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament, which UNC won with a 14-12 victory over Boston College.
Chloe Humphrey and Ashley Humphrey both have NCAA and school records and this year they were selected First-Team All-Americans by the IWLCA, Nike Lacrosse Media, and USA Lacrosse.
The COVID-19 pandemic canceled all spring sports in 2020 when Ashley was a senior and Chloe a freshman at Darien, so they never got to team up in high school.
Chloe scored 103 goals as a senior when she was the GameTimeCT Player of the Year in 2023 and finished her high school career with 209 goals and 80 assists. Ashley had 129 points with 63 goals and 66 assists during her junior year at Darien when she was the state’s Player of the Year in 2019.
She played for Stanford University in 2022 and ’23 after redshirting in 2021 and before playing for the Tar Heels the last two seasons as a graduate student.
Ashley set the NCAA record for assists in a season when she dished out 88 assists as a redshirt freshman for Stanford in 2022. Ashley now has the NCAA record of 90 assists in a season after breaking her own record this year. She also has the NCAA record of 258 career assists and UNC school records for assists (90) and points (121) in a season.
Nicole Humphrey has been a member of two national championship teams at UNC. She had six goals and an assist this season as midfielder and a veteran team leader and concluded her career with 51 goals and 13 assists.
As a senior midfielder in 2023, Nicole was fifth on the team with 27 goals, the most for a non-starter on UNC, and she then pursued her master’s degree at Southern California for the 2023-24 academic year. Nicole still had one year of athletic eligibility, so she returned to UNC to be teammates with her sisters.
Kaleigh Harden, the former New Canaan star, and Addie Patillo, the former Wilton star, also played key roles to help 30th-year coach Jenny Levy win her fourth NCAA championship at UNC.
Harden was a redshirt sophomore midfielder who started in all 22 games for UNC this year. She scored 17 goals and had four assists, 26 groundballs, 17 caused turnovers and had a team-high 63 draw controls this year.
Harden now has 31 goals, 41 five assists, 26 caused turnovers and 117 draw controls in 43 career games. She scored 14 goals as a freshman in 2023 prior to redshirting last year.
Last year Pattillo had 95 goals, 33 assists and 120 draw controls as an all-state senior attacker for Wilton.
One year later she had 35 points in college as a valuable substitute attacker for the Division I national championship team. Pattillo scored 31 goals on her 59 shots for a high .525 shooting percentage.
There were three former Darien Blue Wave players who were All-American First-Team selections and picked to the All-ACC First Team.
Dolce secured her status as the best goalkeeper in the country. The Boston College junior joined Ashley Humphrey and Chloe Humphrey in being selected First-Team All-Americans by the Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association, Nike Lacrosse Media and USA Lacrosse.
Dolce led the NCAA with a .550 save percentage and with 203 total saves and was second in goals-against average (7.85).
The IWLCA names four Division I positional Players of the Year and Dolce was its Goalkeeper of the Year. She was the ACC Goalkeeper of the Year for the second consecutive season and a Tewaaraton Award finalist.
Last year Dolce played a vital role in helping Boston College win the 2024 NCAA Division I Women’s Lacrosse Tournament championship. She made a huge save with less than a minute left in the final which the Eagles won, 14-13, over defending champion Northwestern in a rematch of the 2023 final.
One of Dolce’s valuable teammates this Russell, the freshman midfielder who had 51 goals, 14 assists and 59 draw controls while helping lead New Canaan to FCIAC and state Class LL championships.
Russell started in 18 of the 21 games she played in this year. She had 16 goals, three assists, 12 groundballs and 12 caused turnovers for the BC Eagles, who lost in the semifinals by one goal (12-11) to Northwestern.
Georgia Hoey, Fairfield Ludlowe’s former star, had a solid season as a graduate student and one of the two goalies who got significant time between the pipes for the Florida Gators.
Hoey started in seven of the 19 games she appeared in, had 68 saves, a .479 save percentage, and was twice selected as the Big 12 Goalkeeper of the Week.
Hoey came off the bench to make eight saves and earn the win in Florida’s 21-10 victory over Arizona State in the championship game of the Big 12 Tournament.
Hoey was with the University of Connecticut program from 2021-23 before transferring to Florida and having the experience of advancing to the NCAA semifinals this year.
Last year as a senior she started in 10 of the 13 games she appeared in, had 52 saves, a .477 save percentage, and led the Gators with an 11-0 record.
Hoey started in 17 of the 31 games she played in during the last two years at Florida, and she had a 17-2 record with 120 saves, a .478 save percentage and an 8.47 goals-against average.