Keith Barnes
May 1, 2024, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Last week: Schutzman scored seven goals last Friday on the Foxes’ senior night in an 18-11 victory against Seneca Valley to move the team to 10-1 on the season. She scored three goals in a win against Shady Side Academy last Wednesday.
Check this out: The three goals against Shady Side Academy put Schutzman, a senior, past the 200-goal mark in her career. A 2023 All-American, Schutzman now has 209 in her career and has an outside chance of beating the school record of 245 set by Megan McCrady in 2017.
Are you kind of surprised, considering your numbers and success, that you haven’t gotten college offers? I did talk to a few schools earlier in the recruiting process that started two years ago. I looked into some and went on a few visits, but I knew really early I wanted to study engineering in college, and that either turned away a lot of schools or restricted me in the process.
Obviously, your academic success and future professional success means a lot. What does that say about you? Lacrosse is my passion. It’s my favorite thing to do. But I know that, all in all, it’s a temporary thing, especially with women’s lacrosse. There’s nothing really to do after four years of college. It showed how I was able to manage both good academics and playing the best lacrosse I could in Pittsburgh.
What was it like scoring No. 200? It was surreal because, as a freshman going in, I watched the girls at Fox Chapel and from other schools reaching, like, 100 their junior or senior year, so my goal was always to get to 100. After last year, we realized 200 was very attainable. When it happened, my teammates were more excited than me because I didn’t believe it would come true.
Do you play any other sports? I play soccer and unified bocce, but my main other sport is soccer.
How are you at soccer? Soccer was my main sport for a really long time, and I played club. When I was way younger, the dream was to play on the U.S. national team and to play college soccer. I didn’t start playing lacrosse until sixth grade when I gave up hockey and wanted to find another sport. I almost didn’t play lacrosse in the spring of my freshman year because I had club soccer.
Do you miss playing hockey? Yeah, I quit when I was in sixth grade and then, in eighth grade, I played again on the middle school team. But, honestly, I do miss it so much.
Who is your favorite hockey player? I would definitely have to go with Sidney Crosby. He’s a Pittsburgh kid, and my name is Sydney. I wore 87 as my hockey number and I had 87 on my club soccer team. Sadly, in high school sports, you can’t go higher than something like 30. And I always loved watching Sid play.