Weekly Cover: Kenzie Kent's Second Chance

Kenzie Kent grew up as one of six children — enough to play lacrosse sixes if the discipline existed at the time. It did not. So, perhaps more appropriately, there were enough Kent kids to field an ice hockey team (goalie included).

Ice hockey was Kent’s first love, but the family backyard in Norwell, Massachusetts, was more of an unstructured, anything-goes hodgepodge of laughs and pure childhood joy.

“She always wanted to be outdoors,” said Jen Kent, Kenzie’s mother, youth coach, college coach at Boston College and operations administrator for the U.S. Women’s National Team in the traditional field discipline. “She had all these sisters and their brother so close in age. They were always outdoors, playing whatever it was.”

The outdoor games eventually turned to indoor rigor. Kent was in the development system for USA Hockey by high school, attending camps from 2010-13 and winning USA Hockey’s Tier One National Championship three times.

Lacrosse wasn’t her specialty. There weren’t enough hours in a day for that.

“Hockey took up the majority of her time,” Jen Kent said. “She would go to some tournaments, but she would miss all kinds of stuff during recruiting stages because she was traveling with hockey. I think that was a hard part for her when she got to high school.”

But Kent carved out some time for her second love anyway. She craved it. She needed it.

“I used lacrosse as an outlet,” she said. “It’s completely different from hockey in a sense. There’s a lot more strategy that goes into it, and I think it's a lot more creative than hockey, which is something I came to love about the sport as I got better and as I got older.”

Kent carried a lacrosse stick around, getting in reps when she got the chance. The game began to gain visibility in the 2010s, fueled by the craftiness of Michelle Tumolo and Kayla Treanor.  

“I realized it was the fastest-growing sport, and there are still things that people are doing every time they touch the field that people have never done before,” Kent said.

Kent decided to do something unconventional in her own right in college. As long-time lacrosse followers know, she played ice hockey and lacrosse for Boston College, leading both programs to final four appearances while earning All-American status. But it wasn’t easy to glide between the two.

To be clear, Kent isn’t the only two-sport star to play lacrosse. Julia Dorsey played in soccer and lacrosse final fours for North Carolina in 2022. Lindsey Frank did the same in field hockey and lacrosse at Northwestern in 2023 after transferring from Richmond. Brigid Duffy plays soccer and lacrosse while balancing the rigors of a service academy at Army.

None of this is to discount their achievements, but those are fall and spring sports that don’t overlap. Hockey is technically a winter sport, but it’s truly relentless, with training beginning in the summer, games starting in the fall and, in the case of a national power like Boston College, ending on the precipice of spring with March’s Frozen Four.

Kent played in it three straight years from 2015 to 2017.

“Her first [lacrosse] game was always UNC, a team that had already been playing all year,” Jen Kent said.

Yet Kent made her impact felt immediately on the lacrosse field, scoring 22 goals in eight games as a freshman in 2015 and 18 goals and 17 assists in 10 games as a sophomore.

But 2017 was a watershed year for Kent. To say she peaked at the right time is an understatement. She produced 37 points in the NCAA tournament, led unseeded Boston College to its first final and became the first player in NCAA history to be named championship MVP in defeat. She put BC on her back, scoring five goals and adding five assists in the Eagles’ 16-13 loss to Maryland at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

Then Kent decided to sit out the 2018 season to focus exclusively on hockey. It was a difficult choice, but one that she ultimately feels, albeit ironically, benefited her lacrosse career.

“It helped me understand the game of lacrosse,” Kent said. “Previously, I had just shown up, gone through the motions, and done what I was told to do, trying to learn the offense quickly in a short period. I had that full year to understand defenses, know where I needed to go and get better.”

Get better she did, posting 127 points, including 52 assists, and helping Boston College reach its third straight NCAA championship game as a senior in 2019. In the end, the lifestyle that had long had Kent spread a touch thin was an asset, not a liability.

“She's very fluid,” said Acacia Walker-Weinstein, the U.S. Women’s National Team and Boston College head coach. “She's very creative. Her stick handling is off the charts — I would argue maybe the best I've ever coached — and it allowed her to be great in both her sports.”

It’s high praise coming from Walker-Weinstein, who has coached some of the world’s best players — many of whom have reunited with their college coach as USA athletes. Kent was one of nine Boston College graduates who played for the U.S. team that won the Pan-American Women's Lacrosse Championship last month in Auburndale, Florida.

Don’t worry, though. Kent’s mom kept her humble, from a (short) distance, as BC’s defensive mastermind.

“I’m a bad person in terms of giving credit. I just kind of see the mistakes,” she once told USA Lacrosse Magazine. “‘You just shot high-to-high and now they’re going to come down and we have to make another stop.’”

“Yeah, sometimes I’d give her a look or something, and she knew exactly what I was thinking,” Jen Kent said in a more-wicked-than-usual Boston accent and with a laugh when the quote was brought up years later.

After her graduate year, Kent was selected third in the 2019 Women's Professional Lacrosse League draft, behind her BC Big Three counterparts Sam Apuzzo and Dempsey Arsenault. She joined Harvard as an assistant coach that summer, returning in 2023 after a stint at Syracuse.

Her playing days weren’t over. In addition to joining Athletes Unlimited in 2021 after the WPLL folded, Kent set her sights on making the 2022 U.S. Women’s National Team set to compete at the World Lacrosse Women’s Championship in Towson, Md. The dream almost became a reality.

Almost.

Kent was one of the last players cut from the final roster, earning a spot as an alternate. It was a bittersweet consolation.

“I was disappointed,” she said. “I wanted it so badly, but ultimately, there were a lot of veteran players on that team.”

Her mother knew how much she wanted to be one of them.

“She was bummed out,” Jen Kent said. “I don’t know how much she showed it, but doing everything, trying out and getting there and being told you're not quite good enough hurt, I think.”

Ever the one to make a quick pivot, Kent looked for the silver lining.

“To even be an alternate and see firsthand what it takes to be at that level and to have an impact on the team was important,” she said. “I learned so much, and I felt like I was a part of the team.”

After the U.S. won gold, Kent had to make choices about her future in the U.S. system. But first, she stepped off the sidelines and onto the field for Athletes Unlimited, finishing in the top 20 in a league of 99 players.

That only sharpened her vision. She was going to try out again for the next national team.

“I felt like I was doing really well in AU,” she said. “I was like, ‘I’m going to try and at least see. I’ll devote the next year to training hard, committing to it and buying in, and see how the first few training camps go.’ They went pretty well.”

As talks of the next training team events in 2024 materialized, Kent was excited to attend. For more than just competition, too. A familiar name, Walker-Weinstein, had taken the helm, with her mother joining the staff to manage operations. Treanor, who coached Kent at Boston College in 2019 and was one of the vets to lead the U.S. to gold in 2022, was also on board.

“It’s a special staff to play for,” Kent said. “I’ve known Acacia forever, and I just love the way she coaches. She’s doing an incredible job with the team, making the players believe in themselves.”

And Mom? She’s softening.

“In college, she was definitely harder on me the first couple of years,” Kent said. “Now, it’s more just empowerment and encouraging.”

Indeed, Jen Kent rarely sees the mistakes these days.

“I don’t see her more in terms of a specific shot but just her joy in playing and how much people like to play with her,” she said.

Kent didn’t give her mother much to criticize. She was nearly flawless at the training camp in June.

“Her skill set is off the charts,” Walker-Weinstein said. “Everything looks so easy, and it’s not. It’s very difficult. But she is so controlled, well-trained and disciplined. She’s made very few errors.”

What’s old is new again. In true Kent fashion, after the U.S. field team camp she immediately shifted focus to sixes — the discipline that will be played in The World Games next month in Chengdu, China, and in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.

“Those of us who attended both camps were laughing a bit because there’s no shot clock for field,” Kent said. “In field, we’re trying to work the clock for the best shot, whereas in sixes, you just have to go right away. It was a little bit of an adjustment, but that’s the fun part of it.”

Who better to go from one discipline to another than a two-sport Division I All-American. And frankly, who better for sixes than a one-time collegiate hockey superstar?

“Kenzie is incredibly dynamic,” said Lindsey Munday, the U.S. Women’s Sixes National Team and USC head coach who met Kent as a high schooler while coaching Northwestern camps in Boston. “She can pass, feed, dodge and get shots off in tight spaces. And with sixes, you need people who can play defense, read and react incredibly smart. Kenzie gets better every day.”

The news got better each day, too. On June 16, Kent found out she made the PALA roster, competing to qualify for the 2026 world championship. The next day, she learned she made the sixes roster.

Three years after falling just short of her national team dream, Kent will be one of 12 players representing the United States when The World Games 2025 lacrosse competition takes place Aug. 7-11 in Chengdu. The sixes team will hold a staging camp Aug. 1-3 in Los Angeles prior to traveling overseas.

“It just means everything,” Kent said. “Being an alternate is bittersweet. You’re so close to being able to experience everything, aside from playing. A lot of hard work paid off. I hope it shows others that it doesn’t matter your journey getting onto the team. For players who maybe didn’t make it this time, there’s always a window to make the team.”

And a higher ceiling than you think.

“To me, I think she’s reaching her peak, and it’s very cool,” Walker-Weinstein said. “Now, I hope that she wins a gold medal because I want Kenzie to win on the biggest stage.”