Opposites can complement each other. Coykendall’s the crafty feeder with off-the-charts vision, and Scane is the bull dodger who sees red in the back of the net. Coykendall is sarcastic with a dry sense of humor, and Scane is the bubbly, happy-go-lucky player living a dream.
It’s perhaps their differences that brought so many people in the lacrosse world into the fandom of the Wildcats. They were approachable as a fan. And fun. Northwestern’s best performances this spring, ones in which Coykendall, Scane and 2024 Tewaaraton finalist Madison Taylor were clicking, were a masterclass in orchestrating an offense.
Amonte Hiller had a front-row seat to the poetry in motion.
“It’s very hard to put into words,” she said. “I mean, these two young women, they care a lot about Northwestern lacrosse. They’ve just been great ambassadors their whole entire career, and really, that’s what it’s about.”
Scane and Coykendall, who were drafted first and second overall, respectively, in the Athletes Unlimited Lacrosse draft earlier this month, built the type of uncanny, unspoken connection other teammates can only dream of honing. And falling one game short of a repeat isn’t enough to muddy the legacy they’ve established nor the culture they leave behind.
“You’re not going to be remembered for the amount of goals you score, the way you play, as much as you’re going to be remembered as how you are as a teammate, how you are as a person, and a leader,” Scane said. “I think that’s something, as I got older, my mentality shifted a lot towards that. You want to pour into the kids that are going to be here once you’re gone and into the culture that so many people have poured into you to help create. It's a game at the end of the day. It’s not too serious. Be a good teammate, be a good person, and the rest kind of comes with it.”
When Charlotte North graduated after the 2022 season, some asked who the next face of the college women’s game would be. Scane, both for the number of goals and the brand of lacrosse, took that title and ran away with it.
Now we ask who will take up Scane’s mantle. There’s no passing of the torch ceremony, leaving us waiting until 2025 to find out.
Whoever it is, they won’t be Izzy Scane. Even in defeat, the one-of-a-kind superstar smiled and left behind one of the best legacies a lacrosse player can leave — a winning culture at a program her younger self aspired to be part of.