CDT Brigid Duffy ’26’s athletic journey began at age 6 when she started kicking a soccer ball on the West Point campus, where she lived. Her father worked there as a podiatrist. Her mother, who ran cross country at Army, knew the campus well and was a volunteer assistant coach for her alma mater. They lived on post, often having athletes over for family dinners.
“Growing up on West Point is unreal,” Gretchen Duffy ’99 said. “You look at the calendar, and it’s like, ‘Should we go to a volleyball game? Judo match?’ We’d throw the kids in the stroller and run around post.”
Duffy’s parents encouraged her to apply to a service academy, not specifying which one. Their new home in Queensbury, New York, was about two and a half hours from their old one in West Point. It had been more than 10 years since they lived on post.
“I didn’t know a lot about it even though I grew up there,” Duffy said. “I looked more into it during the recruiting process. I realized what it would do for a career to go through these hardships and I knew it would benefit me. Being able to play sports makes it a lot more fun.”
A second-year midfielder for the up-and-coming Army West Point Women’s Lacrosse team and a member of the 2024 U.S. Women’s U20 Training Team, Duffy was the nation’s top-scoring freshman (56) and broke the Black Knights’ single-season points record (82) as Army made its first-ever Patriot League title game and NCAA tournament appearance last year.
That was after playing in 20 matches as a plebe midfielder for Army West Point’s Women’s Soccer team. She hit the pitch again as a yearling this fall and was the top goal scorer for another Army team that made the Patriot League finals. Her two worlds collided October 13-14 in Maryland, when she played for 82 minutes in the Black Knights’ 2-1 win at rival Navy just 24 hours after she scored three goals in the U.S. U20 women’s 16-9 victory over Canada at the USA Lacrosse Fall Classic.
Duffy is doing all this while juggling the rigors of a West Point curriculum that prepares cadets for future military service. If that sounds like a lot, it is. Yet those who see Duffy in action say there’s no one better to manage the load.
“She has this God-given talent of athletic ability on top of an incredibly intelligent brain and an athlete’s mindset and work ethic,” said Army Women’s Lacrosse Coach Michelle Tumolo, an assistant for the U20 team.
Excerpt and image taken from https://www.usalacrosse.com.
