The last few years, there has been a four-team midseason girls’ lacrosse tournament which has invited the four sitting public-school girls’ lacrosse champions for an in-season gathering called the 4 Causes 4 Champions. When we covered the 2023 final, we dubbed it the MPSSAA Tournament of Champions.
With the dissolution of all Tournaments of Champions in New Jersey after the 2022 academic year, the tournament was the closest you could get to having any state’s best public-school teams in once place at one time for one cup.
The tournament is the brainchild of Thomas Brandel, the head coach of Sykesville Liberty (Md.), who envisioned the tournament as not only a challenge for the four invited teams, but as a way to raise awareness for various health causes, such as the one that befell his wife, Karyn.
Last month, on September 17, she succumbed to the scourge of brain cancer after a two-year battle with the disease. A community-wide burial, celebration of life, and a giveaway of sugar maple trees occurred afterwards.
Karyn Brandel was a great servant to education, as a special education teacher for two decades. And she was also a great lacrosse mom alongside her husband at Liberty.
I have a feeling that there is going to be enormous motivation for the Liberty varsity next spring as the team seeks its fourth consecutive state title under Thomas Brandel’s coaching. It would be a great story of the team was to win, sure. But the life lessons already being taught right now to these young people are just as powerful as the collective effort on the lacrosse pitch.
