Kayla Best, Lacrosse star at UAlbany has scored in 39 straight games

University of Albany junior attack Kayla Best got into lacrosse only as a favor to her closest friend.

She and Kelsey Schwan were seventh-grade classmates at Farnsworth Middle School in Guilderland. They'd go to watch Schwan's father, Tom, coach the Guilderland High boys' team.

"She'd drag me to games to work the clock," Best said. "I actually had no idea what lacrosse was in the beginning."

The friends would go on the field at halftime and play catch. Best found it difficult at first to pass that little ball with a stick that felt to her like a tennis racket.

Eventually, though, her superior athleticism took over.

"All sports came easy to her," said her father, Dale. "And the coaches saw it right away, too. She had the knack."

The knack for finding the net, that is.

Best has scored at least one goal in 39 straight games, the third-longest streak in Division I, entering Saturday's match at 12th-ranked Boston University in the America East Conference.

Best, who has 26 goals this season and 103 in her career, acknowledged her streak does cross her mind at times.

"It does put a little pressure on, but I love playing lacrosse, so it's a lot of fun," she said.

The Great Danes (4-5 overall, 1-0 league) earned their first win over a ranked opponent last Saturday when Best scored three times in a 16-15 upset of then-No. 13 New Hampshire.

Inside Lacrosse named Best Division I National Player of the Week.

A win over Boston University (5-3, 0-0), which has been to four straight NCAA Tournaments, would show the Great Danes are a real threat to earn their first America East title and NCAA bid.

"I think they're definitely beatable this year," Best said.

UAlbany is 0-10 against Boston U. as a Division I program, outscored by a combined 168-50.

If UAlbany makes program history, it'll happen largely because of Best, a high-school All-American who looked mostly at Division III colleges before committing to the Great Danes. "It was close to home and I have a very close family," she explained. "The program was young and I knew it would grow."

She was a member of the first recruiting class for head coach Lindsey Hart, who said Best probably wasn't recruited more because she was still a raw talent.

In fact, Best toyed with being a two-sport athlete in college because she excelled at Guilderland in soccer as well. However, most schools were cool to that idea and Best decided it would be too much. "People were unsure of what she was thinking," Hart said.

Focusing solely on lacrosse, the 5-foot-8 Best has added an accurate shot to her love of competition, which runs in the family. Her mother, Anne, played softball at Cazenovia and is now a physical education teacher at Westmere Elementary in Guilderland.

"(Kayla's) biggest strength was always her athleticism, and over the last couple of years, she's really developed into a lacrosse player," Hart said.

Mark Singelais