SPARKS, Md. – James Madison lacrosse standout Mairead Durkin was drafted in the Athletes Unlimited 2023 College Draft on Tuesday and has been invited to play in the 2023 Athletes Unlimited lacrosse season coming up this summer.

Durkin was selected among 11 of the top college women’s lacrosse graduating seniors. She is the third JMU lacrosse alumna to be invited to compete in the league, joining Haley Warden and Molly Dougherty.

Heading into its third season of lacrosse, Athletes Unlimited provides a unique scoring system with individuals being awarded for individual actions while also gaining points for team success.

Individually, points are awarded for positive actions such as goals, assists, caused turnovers and ground balls and are taken away for negative actions such as missed shots, turnovers and cards.
Each quarter victory will gain each player on the winning team 20 points while a game victory will gain 45 points.

Durkin, an All-American and Tewaaraton Award nominee at JMU, has 131 career caused turnovers, most in JMU history, to go with 114 ground balls and 55 draw controls across 72 games. In 2023 alone, she has caused 43 turnovers and scooped 31 ground balls. She has won several major conference awards during her JMU career, most recently a unanimous selection as the American Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Year in 2023.

The Stony Point, N.Y. native has helped JMU to the No. 7 seed in the upcoming NCAA Championship.

Athletes Unlimited will run from July 20-August 13 at the USA Lacrosse headquarters in Sparks, Md. All competitions will air in front of a national audience on the ESPN family of networks. Teams will be selected through four captains before each of the four weeks, with the week one draft set for July 16.

— JMU Athletics —