How three sisters reunited with UNC women’s lacrosse to chase an NCAA title

If John Humphrey could address his Darien, Connecticut, neighborhood, he might start with an apology. Not for the usual suburban offenses — overgrown hedges, maybe a rogue frisbee — but for the hundreds of lacrosse balls his daughters rocketed over the fence and into surrounding yards during their rise from the backyard to the NCAA’s biggest stage.

“We complain about, you know, there’s a barking dog,” John Humphrey said, “and I would catch myself and say, ‘Well, how many lacrosse balls do they have in their backyard?’”

The backyard bore the brunt of his daughters’ early training, but the real damage was done inside.

In the Humphrey household, lacrosse didn’t stop at the door — it spilled into the garage. The mother, Sarah Humphrey, admits the house has taken a beating over the years. The garage walls are so full of holes they’ve had to be repeatedly boarded up, the lights hang broken and the switch covers — those that remain, at least — are shattered.

“Our house is a mess,” Sarah Humphrey said, “but we let them play.”

Somewhere amid the chaos, three daughters sharpened their skills.

In a home held together with makeshift wood paneling and nets doing their best to protect windows, Nicole, Ashley and Chloe Humphrey weren’t just learning how to cradle, cut and feed at an elite level. They were building a bond that now anchors the No. 1 North Carolina women’s lacrosse team.

This season, all three Humphrey sisters are at the heart of UNC’s national title hopes as standouts on one of the deepest, most dominant rosters in the country. The undefeated Tar Heels, fresh off their ACC Championship victory in late April, begin their quest for a fourth NCAA title on Sunday at noon.

It all sounds like a storybook — three sisters, all stars, now reunited on the top team in the country. A clean arc with a perfect reunion.

But it’s not that simple.

“It’s like watching a duck,” John Humphrey said. “It looks so elegant and gracefully falling into place. And underneath the water is where all the activities take place.”

Just beneath the surface of this story, there’s been a steady churn — injuries, redshirts and the relentless work to push through and play for each other.

“There’s always a silver lining,” Ashley Humphrey, the middle sister, said. “I feel like this season is so much sweeter because you were able to take a step back and find a lot of gratitude and perspective, and just be able to come back even stronger.”

To understand how the Humphrey sisters arrived here, you have to rewind.

Past the national rankings, past the accolades and back through the winding road that led them all to Chapel Hill.

A lacrosse hobby becomes much more

Lacrosse wasn’t Nicole Humphrey’s first love — gymnastics was.

The eldest sister dedicated most of her childhood to the sport, while lacrosse was more of a hobby. She played for her middle school’s lacrosse B team and thought nothing of it.

But that changed in seventh grade, when her middle school coach Richard van de Broek approached her with a prediction: “You could be really good at lacrosse.”

Nicole shrugged it off, but he followed up with an offer: “I’ll come over to your backyard. I’ll show you the drills that you should do to get better.”

Sure enough, he showed up at the Humphrey household with his daughter, one of Nicole’s teammates, and held an impromptu clinic.

By the end of the day, the Humphrey sisters had a full arsenal of lefty drills and a summer of wide-open days to master them. And they did. The sisters laugh now at the memories made then — jean shorts, bare feet in the grass and endless reps under the sun.

That summer of 2014 was a turning point. Nicole made the A-team in eighth grade and, the following year, committed to North Carolina.

“That moment was when we saw the translation of like, ‘Wow, if we do these drills, we will get better,’” Nicole said. “‘We will achieve our goals.’”

But Nicole’s early years in lacrosse weren’t always that easy. While Ashley, the middle sister, made the top club team almost immediately, Nicole struggled. The eldest was even cut from her club squad in eighth grade.

But that only pushed her harder.

Nicole transferred to lacrosse powerhouse Darien High School — a program with 20 state championships, and over 60 All-Americans and 130 college players — and became a four-year letterwinner for Hall of Fame coach Lisa Lindley. By her senior year, Nicole was a two-time U.S. Lacrosse All-American and one of the top-20 incoming college recruits in the country.

Her high school success translated quickly to the next level. Even in limited action in 2020 (due to the pandemic), she led all UNC freshmen in goals and showed flashes of the player she would become.

By her sophomore year, Nicole had carved out a role on a star-studded roster. As a key contributor in the midfield, she played in all 22 games as a junior — even scoring a critical goal in the fourth quarter of the national title game — to help UNC cap off a perfect season with an NCAA championship.

As a senior, Nicole led all non-starters in goals before transferring to Southern California to pursue her master’s degree. She planned to play lacrosse there too, of course, but tore a ligament in her midfoot.

A surgery and five screws later, Nicole was sidelined for the season.

But her career was far from over. Although she didn’t know it then, she’d soon return to a familiar place, with far too familiar faces.

Ashley leads from the middle

Despite being the middle child, it was Ashley who paved the way.

She picked up a lacrosse stick at age 8, and that was that. It was quickly evident Ashley had a gift for the game — not just in skill, but in vision. (At this point, Chloe would probably jump in and remind you her big sister’s been breaking assist records for years.)

Ashley credits her vision to her background as a point guard. Although she didn’t ultimately follow in her father’s footsteps — John broke several records himself as a basketball player at Middlebury College — her ability to see passing lanes before they opened on the hardwood translated naturally to the field.

“Even in practice, I’ll see someone open, and I’m like, ‘Ooh,’ and then she’ll feed someone that’s even more open,” Nicole said. “Oh my God… for some reason, Ashley will always hit that person.”

When Ashley facilitates, others score. But it’s not just a result of her feel for the game — it comes down to her preparation.

Since middle school, Ashley has loved watching film. Like, obsessively. Lindley claims that, by the time Ashley arrived at Darien High School, the teenager had combed through four or five years of tape the team had on Hudl.

Ashley watched every game.

“So yeah, that’s unusual, right?” Lindley said. “Most teenage girls aren’t doing that, so she is definitely a student of the game.”

Ashley followed in Nicole’s footsteps, becoming a two-time All-American in high school, but then diverged when she decided to take her talents to the West Coast.

At Stanford, Ashley excelled, to put it lightly. After redshirting the 2021 season, she set NCAA records in the 2022 season for single-season assists and single-season assists per game. The next year, she started every contest for the Cardinal and led the Pac-12 in points and assists.

The Stanford program was on the rise. But in the fall of 2023, with Chloe enrolled as a freshman at UNC, the opportunity to compete with her younger sister on a national title-contending team was too sweet to pass up.

In November, Ashley announced she’d be joining the Tar Heels the following semester as a grad transfer.

But the 2024 season didn’t live up to expectations. North Carolina was plagued by the injury bug, with coach Jenny Levy estimating the Tar Heels had eight starters out.

Ashley remembers teams that hadn’t beaten UNC in a decade — or ever — trouncing the Tar Heels.

For people as competitive as the Humphreys, that was a difficult adjustment. Ashley was determined to make that a one-time ordeal.

“We felt like we weren’t putting our best foot forward… so this year, having everybody back, I feel like we have this chip on our shoulder,” Ashley said. “We need to prove to all these teams [last year] was a fluke and it won’t happen again. We’ve been cashing these receipts as we go.”

Chloe watches...but not for long

Chloe’s story began behind a window. This is where the youngest Humphrey first watched her two older sisters practice outside, back when she was too tiny to keep up.

That didn’t last long.

In trying to catch up to her sisters, Chloe quickly developed a complete game far beyond her years.

“No one works harder than Chloe,” Nicole said. “It’s actually crazy how much work she puts in. She makes it look so effortless, but this has been a work in progress since she was in second grade. I think she has not gone a day without playing lacrosse in some way or making herself better.”

Her family agrees: Chloe is the most competitive. That spans from Easter egg hunts to learning stick tricks. Back in Darien, the garage became Chloe’s personal training lab, outfitted with a bounce-back pad and wood paneling to protect the walls. Nicole, whose bedroom sat directly above the makeshift gym, always knew when Chloe was at work.

Their mom, Sarah, often received texts from her eldest child at night: “Tell Chloe to stop throwing the ball! My whole room is shaking!”

Chloe’s drive didn’t stop, not for her sisters’ bedtime, not ever. Even in elementary school, the youngest Humphrey sister was a standout. It was around the age of 6 or 7 that Chloe first caught the eye of Levy at a clinic.

Levy knew, even then, this one was special.

By the eighth grade, the gap between Chloe and other players her age was drastic. John recalls a conversation he had with his youngest daughter at the time. He told Chloe she was ahead of her peers. Now, her challenge was to make sure they didn’t catch up.

They never did, and they still haven’t.

Chloe came to North Carolina as the No. 1 recruit in the Class of 2023, according to Inside Lacrosse. Not only was she a two-time All-American, just like her big sisters, but she was also named the national high school player of the year by USA Lacrosse and USA Today.

Needless to say, Chloe arrived in Chapel Hill ready to make an immediate impact. But before she could log a minute, Chloe suffered a preseason injury that sidelined her entire freshman season.

A nagging pain in her foot in January 2024 turned out to be a potentially career-ending stress reaction. She’d have to sit out, doctors told her.

It was a tough blow — the first major hurdle of her college career — but having her sisters to look up to helped. Ashley drove Chloe to her appointments. Nicole, who was sidelined at USC at the same time (also due to a foot injury), was a phone call away. Seeing her oldest sister traveling up and down the California coast gave Chloe a new perspective.

“Just realizing that you don’t have to mope and feel bad for yourself about these injuries but to just make incredible opportunities out of it,” Chloe said. “I think she really inspired me to put my time into hobbies that I would have never found. It also strengthened a lot of friendships I wouldn’t have had without.”

But, to Chloe’s delight, her older sister wouldn’t be on the opposite coast much longer.

Together again

Last week, under the midday sun at Dorrance Field, the Humphrey sisters posed for portraits when Chloe turned to Nicole. She wanted to know what uniforms they’d wear if they made the national title game.

“Jenny likes blue for the natty,” Nicole said, matter-of-factly.

She’d know, of course, because she was there in 2022, when North Carolina brought home the national championship trophy. That kind of experience is what Nicole brings now after transferring back to UNC for her final year of eligibility — even if this season hasn’t unfolded as she would’ve hoped.

A bulky black boot still hugs her left foot when she’s not playing, a lingering injury that’s limited her on-field abilities. But ask the team and they’ll tell you: her presence is more than her play.

“Nicole’s great because she’s played for us before,” Levy said. “She really understands how we run things and our offenses… she understands what works and what doesn’t in our systems.”

As for Ashley and Chloe, their impact has been noticed on a national level.

On Thursday, both were named as top-five finalists for the Tewaaraton Award, given to the top player in college lacrosse.

But while the talent of all three sisters is elite, their joy is equally unmistakable. They still laugh during drills. They still show off their stick tricks. They still chuckle as they remember that time they convinced younger brother Brett to suit up in goal. And yes, Ashley and Nicole still tease Chloe from time to time.

But the mission couldn’t be more serious. The Humphreys won’t be satisfied until they’re bathing in confetti at the end of May.

“Because we had that adversity, we’re now feeling like we’re the underdogs in some way,” Ashley said.

“We want to bring that standard back to Carolina,” Nicole added, “for ourselves and for everyone last year.”

“Even though we’re ranked number one, I don’t think any of us have gone into a game feeling like we’re number one,” Chloe chimed in. “We always are hungry and have so much more to prove… this team won’t stop until we achieve all of our goals this season.”

The three sisters, living to one standard, now have one shot to finish what they started — together.

Maybe now, for those neighbors back in Darien, the lacrosse balls in the hedges make a little more sense.

This story was originally published May 8, 2025 at 1:09 PM.