Erin Coykendall brings pro experience, ‘unique’ skills to Wellesley girls lacrosse

Steve Balter watched footage from one of Wellesley’s scrimmages during the preseason at least a dozen times.

The Raiders head coach started the film over and over, going through each possession, looking for things he might have missed and making observations on specific plays with each watch. By the time he was finished, he had a long list of coaching points for the team’s next practice.

Before the Raiders took the field again, he showed the footage to the team’s assistant coach and new offensive coordinator, Erin Coykendall.

After watching the footage only once, the former Northwestern women’s lacrosse All-American made all the same observations Balter had, and more.

“She has a unique ability to process things and see things,” Balter said about Coykendall. “Things slow down for her. She’s seeing 10 things at the same time. … It’s fascinating to watch her process things.”

Coykendall, a native of Spencerport, New York, was a star on the attack at Northwestern before graduating in 2024. Through her collegiate career, she won a national championship in 2023, accumulated 368 points, graduated second in program history and sixth in NCAA history with 197 career assists. She was a two-time nominee for the Tewaaraton Award, an award that is given to the nation’s most outstanding collegiate women’s lacrosse player.

Now in between her fifth and final season at Northwestern and her first with the New York Charging, an inaugural team in the Women’s Lacrosse League (WLL), Coykendall is in her first full season as an assistant coach at Wellesley, running the team’s offense.

With star players like Tara Battaglino, Villanova commit Abby Beggans, Arizona State commit Olivia Comella and Davidson commit Kaitlyn Uller leading the way, and with Coykendall on the sideline, Wellesley has one of the best offenses in all of Division I this spring. Through nine games, the program is averaging 14.6 goals per game and was the No. 6-ranked team in its division in the most recent power rankings put out by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA).

Coykendall first picked up a stick when she was four years old. Since then, her love and understanding for the game of lacrosse has only grown, and she’s excited to have the opportunity to share what she knows with Raider players.

“It’s fun,” Coykendall said. “It’s a lot different than being a player. … You learn something new and find new ways to think about the game. It’s a new perspective from the sideline … it gives a new perspective on all the things my coaches have seen (from their point of view) throughout the years.”

During her time at Northwestern, Coykendall was friends and roommates with her lacrosse teammate, Maddy Balter, the daughter of Wellesley coach Steve Balter.

Steve Balter knew that Erin was a nerd for the game’s X’s and O’s and thought she’d be a valuable addition to the team’s coaching staff. Once her final season was over at Northwestern in 2024, Coykendall joined the Raiders for their postseason run last spring. The program was the No. 2 seed in the Division I tournament and made it to the title game before falling to Central Catholic.

In the offseason, she also coaches girls lacrosse players of all ages from around Massachusetts in group sessions and one-on-one.

At Northwestern, Coykendall and the rest of the team’s attack generated goals with creative picks and off-ball movement. Now at Wellesley, with help from Coykendall, the team is implementing the same strategy.

Sometimes when Wellesley is low on offensive players at practice, Coykendall will pick up a stick and jump into a drill to give a hands-on demonstration of a coaching point.

When she does, everyone watches and learns.

“She’s such a creative player, so she’s always teaching us new things to add,” Beggans said. “Teaching us new things that we’ve never practiced before. Just making us better players individually and as a team, bringing in new picks and ways to see the field.”

All of Wellesley’s starting attackers will play lacrosse in college. Winning a state championship and going on to play in college are the two things any great player at Wellesley wants to achieve, but with a player like Coykendall on the sideline, someone that has not only played at a high level in college, but is blazing a trail as a professional women’s lacrosse player, she is raising expectations for what high school players feel like they can achieve with the game.

“It’s super cool that she can do that,” Uller said about Coykendall playing professionally. “It’s hard to get to the pro level, but having someone who has made it with us is cool. She’s still playing. Her game is still growing. That different perspective has been really cool.”

Women’s lacrosse, like any sport, grows and evolves with tactical trends all the time. Much like how 3-pointers weren’t always part of the game of basketball and now dominate the professional game, women’s lacrosse and how it’s played is always changing.

Having someone like Coykendall on the sideline who has mastered many aspects of the game and is on top of its changing trends has been an invaluable resource for this year’s team.

“She’s still playing and she knows how much the game has changed,” Beggans said. “We all look up to her because she’s playing at the highest level. She’s really just a role model for all of us.”

Over the April school break, Wellesley took a cross-country trip to California to play two nationally ranked San Diego schools, Torrey Pines and Coronado. The games were partially organized by Coykendall, who reached out to the teams’ coaches in the preseason to see if there was interest in getting the games scheduled.

After Wellesley’s second game in California, Coronado players came over to the team’s sideline to introduce themselves and take pictures with Coykendall.

Coykendall doesn’t seek out the spotlight, but she’s happy to have the opportunity to teach the game she loves to younger players and to learn some things from them along the way.

“One of the biggest things I’ve found is understanding them individually and what they respond to,” Coykendall said. “Sometimes people don’t need all the X’s and O’s. They just need to be picked up. Sometimes people thrive on that. … Just finding different ways to connect with the girls and understand them on a personal level and implement that into how we coach them.”

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