‘You Find Your People, And They Find You’

Thayer alums reflect on a friendship forged by the game they love

They say there’s no “I” in “Team,” but there are three in Anni (McDonough) Zukauskas ‘94 P ‘28, ‘29, Jennifer (Lally) Kent ‘86 P ‘13, and Kelly (Amonte) Hiller ‘92. 

Which is to say that these three incredibly accomplished women, all lifelong friends, present pieces of a wonderful puzzle: Each can stand alone on their storied athletic achievements, yet they’re intertwined and practically inseparable — so much so that, during a recent interview, the women often finished each other’s sentences and sometimes politely interrupted one another only to emphatically agree with what the other had been saying. 

The coaches share a passion for lacrosse, a commitment to high expectations, and a belief that family is the bedrock upon which all great things are built. And the three also share a love of the Thayer experiences that brought them together. 

“You find your people, and they find you,” says Zukauskas. 

The collective lacrosse résumés of Zukauskas, Kent, and Amonte Hiller are impressive by any measure. As a player, Zukauskas captained the lacrosse team at Thayer before doing the same at the University of Rochester, where she still holds a number of school records; the Dorchester native is a member of the athletic halls of fame at both schools. As a coach, she led Thayer’s varsity program from 2000 until 2007 and then returned to her alma mater in 2014. She has prepared student-athletes to play collegiately at such schools as Boston College, Northwestern, and Vanderbilt. Her 2019 Tigers squad won that spring’s ISL Tournament and her 2021 team boasted an almost gaudy 11 college commits. 

A multisport student-athlete at Thayer like Zukauskas and Amonte Hiller, Kent’s first love was basketball. A member of the Thayer Sports Hall of Fame, she credits fellow Hall of Famer Lisa Miller ‘83, currently the head coach of the UMass Lowell women’s lacrosse program, for encouraging her to play lacrosse. After Thayer, the Norwell native played soccer and basketball in addition to lacrosse at Colby College. She received four letters in lacrosse, served as a two-year captain with kudos as the team’s MVP and leading scorer, and earned Brine/IWLCA second team All-American honors as a senior. She has spent 18 years on the sidelines of the Boston College women’s lacrosse program, first as an assistant coach and now as an associate head coach. She helped lead the Eagles to two national championships, the first in 2021 and the second — a classic 14-13 victory over Amonte Hiller’s Northwestern team — in 2024. 

And then there’s Amonte Hiller. Originally from Hingham, she didn’t have any interest in lacrosse because she had grown up playing softball. However, Thayer didn’t have a softball team at the time. 

“I didn’t really know what to expect,” says Amonte Hiller. “Thank goodness they didn’t have softball.” 

Similar to Kent, Amonte Hiller lauds Miller, who by then had become Thayer’s lacrosse coach. Miller, having seen Amonte Hiller’s exploits on the soccer pitch and the basketball court, encouraged the student-athlete to give lacrosse a try. 

“At Thayer, I tell Lisa that I really owe everything to her,” says Amonte Hiller. “She really took a personal interest in me.” 

And that interest soon paid dividends. After starring at Thayer, Amonte Hiller was a four-time All-American lacrosse player for the University of Maryland. She earned back-to-back national player of the year awards and led the Terrapins to two NCAA Div. 1 championships. She even earned All-American recognition playing soccer for UMD. Amonte Hiller then represented her country as a member of the United States National Team. For her accomplishments solely as a player, Amonte Hiller was inducted into the U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2012. 

Northwestern University hired Amonte Hiller as their head lacrosse coach in 2000, and she coached the Wildcats’ inaugural varsity season in 2002. She soon transformed Northwestern into a lacrosse dynasty that won eight NCAA Div. 1 championships. For those keeping score — and all three alumnae most definitely keep score — that would be 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2022. Without fear of exaggeration, Amonte Hiller is considered one of the game’s best players and one of the game’s best coaches. 

“Without a doubt, my coaching model was Kelly,” Kent says of her longtime friend and occasional rival. “The work ethic. The passion. The ability to think outside the box. There’s no one more on the cutting edge than Kelly; she makes me work harder.” 

Zukauskas agrees but throws Kent into the conversation. 

“I’m always learning something from Kelly and Jen,” says Zukauskas, a former teammate of Amonte Hiller’s who remembers being a “gym rat” middle schooler waiting for rides home and watching Kent play. “My job is to love the game with all my heart and then surround myself with great people who know more than I do and who are going to make me better.” 

Amonte Hiller is a lacrosse icon, but she puts the trio’s relationship in plain language that legendary football coaches like Tom Landry, Vince Lombardi, or Knute Rockne would instantly recognize. 

“There’s a shared respect,” she says. “That’s really what connects us. That’s really what all this is about. We have this incredible togetherness because of our history, and we will always have that.” 

Zukauskas, Kent, and Amonte Hiller all grew up in big, loving, super-competitive families where, despite that love, sibling sports contests often turned into backyard brawls. 

“There were five of us growing up,” recalls Kent. “Everything was outside.” 

They learned early not to take a backseat to anyone. In fact, Amonte Hiller vividly remembers her dad, Lewis, declaring to anyone who’d listen that his daughter was the best athlete in the family. High praise, indeed, especially when one considers that her older brother, Tony Amonte ‘89 P ‘16, ‘18, ‘19, ‘23, is in the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame after 15 seasons in the NHL, including one as a captain of the Chicago Blackhawks. 

“I felt no different than Tony,” says Amonte Hiller, who demanded the same level of attention and respect from college recruiters that she’d seen her big brother receive. 

The three see their coaching styles as fair but with high expectations; they demand nothing less than a player’s best. However, they each understand that such commitment is a two-way street. 

“As women and as mothers, we know how hard we work," says Zukauskas, "but we also know how important it is to give these young women our best.” 

Kent echoes that approach. 

“The older I get, the more I realize that I coach as I parent,” says Kent. “Sometimes an athlete needs to be challenged, and sometimes they need a hug. It’s different for every player and for every situation, but I think, ‘What would I want for my own daughter?’ Then I try to hold myself to that standard.” 

Another tie that binds the trio is unwavering support from their husbands — Tom for Anni, Jeff for Jen, and Scott for Kelly. 

“I wouldn’t be able to do what I do without that support,” Amonte Hiller says of Scott, an assistant coach with the Wildcats and himself a four-year All-American lacrosse player at UMass Amherst. 

Amonte Hiller and Kent are extremely busy preparing their teams at programs where national championships are, if not expected, at least an annual possibility. That said, they both find time each spring to return to Thayer’s campus and watch Zukauskas lead her team onto the field. 

“The experiences are always there for us,” says Kent, “so when we come back, we’re home.” 

Editor’s Note: This article about Thayer women in athletics will be one of many featured in the next issue of Thayer Magazine, coming out in Spring 2025.