Kate Levy: ILWomen's No. 3 Freshman

University of North Carolina women's lacrosse player Kate Levy has been ranked No. 3 in ILWomen's Top 10 Freshman rankings, giving the Tar Heels three of the top-10 rookies in the Class of 2024.

The daughter of head coach Jenny Levy, the All-American midfielder is a Chapel Hill native who was named the 2024 USA Lacrosse High School Player of the Year and Mid-Atlantic Player of the Year. Levy totaled 95 goals, 40 assists, 135 points and 201 draw controls in two years at McDonogh School.

ILWomen's No. 6 Freshman Kate Levy: The Cornerstone
By Terry Foy, originally published for Inside Lacrosse

"It's hard to get interviewed about your own kid," North Carolina head coach Jenny Levy said near the conclusion of a phone conversation about her daughter Kate's commitment to her program.

Levy says that theirs will be the first mother-head coach/daughter-player relationship in Division I women's lacrosse, noting that Gary Gait had coached his daughter Taylor, and that Cathy Reese coaching her daughter Cayden will be the second when she joins the Terps in two years.

"I think it's different for girls," Jenny says. "They're so sensitive to dynamics and favoritism and things like that. Our kids have grown up around the game and around our team, so I think they innately understand how to navigate it socially. Luckily for me and probably for Cathy, when Cayden gets to Maryland, is they're both really, really good players, right? That just helps. It helps that no one's questioning why they're on the field, which is really nice."

Kate Levy (McDonogh, Md.) is the No. 3-ranked player in the Class of 2024. A 5-6, left-handed middie, Levy is an all-around dominant player between the 30s. The 5-Star was twice rated a 91, the second at July's New Balance All-America Senior Game.

"While she was held scoreless thanks to her future teammate Lexi Zenk stonewalling her in the early going, Levy made an impact for the South in many other ways," the evaluation reads. "She led the game in groundballs, adding six draw controls and a caused turnover. Levy attacks 50/50 possessions hard, anticipating where the ball is going with an understanding of where the ball should move immediately after gaining possession to help continue the fastbreak."

If Jenny wanted to coach her and she was good enough to be on the team, then the only remaining question is whether Kate would want to be a Tar Heel.

"[Going to Carolina] has always been my dream," says Kate, whose older brothers Ryan and Alec are a senior and a sophomore, respectively, on UNC's men's lacrosse team. "At first, the idea of looking at [other colleges] and getting attention through the recruiting process was very appealing, but then once I really thought about it deeper, I realized how special this place is and how I don't think I could beat it if I tried. So when the recruiting process actually came around, I was pretty locked in on Carolina and wasn't interested in exploring other options."

Though it's clear now that Kate belongs on the field for a national title contender, that wasn't the case when she left Chapel Hill for Baltimore.

"We didn't know how great she would do in Maryland," Jenny says. "You send her up there, we didn't ask for any favors, we didn't ask for special treatment. We just said, 'Hey, go figure it out and see what happens.' We weren't necessarily surprised by her ability to compete and be an impact player, but we didn't know and I think, for her, it was a way to build her confidence and establish herself. To say, 'Hey, I'm not just going to Carolina because my mom's a coach, I'm going to Carolina because I'm a really good player and I've worked hard to be a good player, so no one should question why.'"

The stint at McDonogh served another purpose, though. Since Kate knew she was always going to spend her college years in Chapel Hill, joining coach (at the time) Taylor Cummings' team was an opportunity to experience life away from home in a way that the next four years couldn't offer.

"Originally, the thought process was to get away from Chapel Hill and experience something new and different for the first time," Kate says. "I think McDonogh definitely succeeded in that goal for me. And I do think being around a bunch of different people who, hearing them say, 'I've always dreamed of going to Maryland.' That was such a weird thought to me, because that or other top schools obviously never crossed my mind."

Kate committed on Sept. 1, the first day she was allowed to do so. So, though her "process" was about as brief as could be, she says she relied more on guidance from her dad, Dan, who went to Carolina for undergrad and is a Senior VP, Olympics and Women's Sports at Wasserman, a global talent agency. And, since she was away at school, it wasn't as if her mom walked down the hallway of her childhood home at midnight to ask if she wanted to commit.

"It was a little more normal than one would think," Kate says. "She called me getting ready for school and asked if I wanted to finally be a Tar Heel."

One of the interesting things about a coach recruiting her daughter's class is that, relative to most years when the evaluation is primarily done during the rising junior summer (and a bit the prior spring and fall), Jenny had been watching Kate, who played for M&D, compete with and against the best players in the country for years. She wasn't just way more familiar than usual, she also could evaluate the players' rate of improvement over multiple years.

"There was definitely more familiarity with the players and how they developed over the years," Jenny says. "I think it gave me a quicker snapshot when evaluating not just the physical abilities, but the harder things to see: the capacity to learn, to be a good teammate, more the intangibles. I felt like I had a little bit more of an inside look at that."

Kate thinks she helped, too.

"She sees the lacrosse side when she's recruiting all summer, but a side that she doesn't see that I have insight on is their personalities and how they are to play against," Kate says. "That's something that she can't always see from the sidelines. So I think, watching our class for so many years, she not only got a better feel of who they were as players, but also as people. And then she also had my input. I feel like I had a pretty good read on people, and I could give my opinion. So yea, I definitely do think that impacted it."

And not only did the Heels end up with the No. 3 player in the class, but the top-ranked class overall.

See the original article published for Inside Lacrosse here.

Stay up to date with UNC women's lacrosse by following the Tar Heels on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Players Mentioned

Kate Levy

Lexi Zenk

Related Videos