QL: Athletes Unlimited Champion, Taylor Moreno

From Athletes Unlimited: SPARKS, Md. — Goalkeeper Taylor Moreno became the first player in any Athletes Unlimited sport to claim consecutive titles after edging attacker Sam Apuzzo to win the 2023 Athletes Unlimited Lacrosse title after an exciting finish at USA Lacrosse Headquarters on Sunday afternoon. Moreno, who secured the championship as a rookie last summer, beat out Apuzzo for the second straight year to finish atop the 57-player leaderboard with 1,679 points. Apuzzo, who claimed her third straight medalist honor, followed with 1,667 points. Goalkeeper Kady Glynn secured third place with 1,346 points while rookie defender Abby Bosco finished fourth with 1,301 points. Bosco, the first defender in league history to earn a medal, was named as the Athletes Unlimited Lacrosse Defensive Player of the Year, while goalkeeper Mira Shane earned the Teammate of the Year award in a vote of the league’s players. Defenders Lizzie Colson, Courtney Taylor and Caroline Wakefield joined Bosco as members of the league’s All-Defensive Team. Athletes Unlimited also announced that it will continue with a fourth season of lacrosse in 2024. Details regarding timing and location will be announced at a later date. After setting the league single-season saves record last summer, Moreno eclipsed her standard this season by pacing the league with 140 saves over 12 games, including eight outings with 10 or more saves. She also established a new single-game record with 17 saves against Team Apuzzo on July 30. To commemorate her victory, Moreno will receive a medal designed and hand-fabricated by Lisa Issenberg, founder of Kiitellä, inc. Kiitellä is a Finnish word meaning “to thank, applaud or praise,” and Issenberg creates awards that are innovative, mixed-media, non-traditional works of art, pieces that celebrate accomplishment, humanity, and philanthropy. Kiitellä is committed to being a responsible steward of our environment, with each step in the process, from design to fabrication to delivery, using minimal energy and material. Athletes Unlimited will also commission a portrait of Moreno for its Champions Collection, which features emerging artists whose work and approach speaks to the mission and values of Athletes Unlimited. The portrait will be created by Graham Martini, a 2022 graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art. The Charleston, South Carolina, native creates contemplative, fantastical, otherworldly and psychological pieces in the form of still lives, figurative and abstract works. His surreal still lives and figurative images reveal the sense that time and associative reasoning do not operate in a linear fashion. Martini depicts this idea through the representation of simultaneity through collage-like compositions as well as transmutational objects – entities that seemingly change form. “I’m super grateful to have the opportunity to even come out here and win another [title], but it’s also a testament to my teammates and all of the support that I’ve had over the last two years,” Moreno said. “I am super grateful for that and can’t thank everyone enough for being so supportive.”