The College of Wooster women’s lacrosse program reached new heights in the season prior to Megan Sward stepping on campus, with the Fighting Scots winning their first-ever North Coast Athletic Conference title. Thanks to Sward’s all-around offensive skillset, and her canny ability to take the best angles toward goal, Wooster was able to sustain that success with a pair of conference titles and two NCAA Div. III Championship berths during her four-year career.
Wooster fielded arguably the most talented team in program history during Sward’s rookie year, when fellow W Association Hall of Famers Beth Hemminger and Nicole Pritchard anchored the offense and defense, respectively. That enabled Sward to settle in nicely, and she finished second on the team in assists (24), third in points (46), and fourth in goals (22) for a team that went 12-4 and won the program’s second NCAC crown.
As a sophomore, Sward was thrust into the spotlight as the Scots’ featured attacker, and the Sewickley, Pennsylvania, product did not disappoint with a team-leading 40 goals and 23 assists for a team that went 13-4, including a perfect 6-0 in NCAC play. After winning a third consecutive NCAC crown, Wooster was tabbed to host the first round of the NCAA Div. III Championships, making the College the first school in Ohio to host a women’s lacrosse NCAA tournament game in any division. When the awards started to roll out, Sward debuted on the all-conference team as a first-team selection, and then subsequently on the Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association’s All-Region first-team and All-America third-team.
Sward’s steady contributions continued over the final two years of her career, only goal-scoring took a bit of a back seat. While still ranking in the top three in goals as a junior and senior, it was Sward’s natural ability to find her open teammates that led to Wooster’s elevated level of success. Fifty-five assists were tallied up by the four-year star over her final two seasons, resulting in two more all-conference and all-region citations.
“Megan was an all-around smooth player and that made her fun to watch and coach,” said Elizabeth Ford, who took over as the College’s head coach for Sward’s senior year. “She had a great stick and a way to finish or find a teammate that made her hard to play against. Megan and her classmates made my first year of coaching at Wooster extremely easy and set the tone for the teams that followed them.”
Sward’s 102 career assists only trail the player – Hemminger – she learned from as a first-year on the program’s all-time leaderboard, while upon graduation, she ranked fourth all-time with 225 points and eighth all-time with 123 goals.
A passion for ceramics and pottery landed Sward at Wooster, as her high school ceramics teacher graduated from the College and studied ceramics under Walter Zurko. After managing a studio for contemporary artist Tom Friedman, Sward now runs her own ceramics business in Massachusetts.
Sward, and her husband, Brad, call Pelham home, and the couple has one child, Bode.