Player development and success – both on and off the field – has been very important for the women’s lacrosse team under the guidance of Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Monte.

The Yellowjackets play in the Liberty League, one of the nation’s toughest conferences for women’s lacrosse. The Liberty League had the 2008 NCAA Division III Team Champion and another team reached the quarterfinal round.

In her five seasons as the head coach, Monte has seen 15 of her players earn All-Liberty League honors with four First Team selections. She also had the 2006 League Rookie of the Year.

Classroom success has paralleled the on-the-field development. In 2005, Rochester had the nation’s second highest cumulative grade point average in rankings issued by the Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association (IWLCA). In 2007, the Yellowjackets had seven individuals named to the All-Academic Team. It was the highest number for any school.

Before coming to the River Campus in August, 2003, Monte directed SUNY Geneseo into the ECAC Women’s Lacrosse Championships and the finals of the SUNYAC Championships in 2002. She was selected as the SUNYAC Women’s Lacrosse Coach of the Year in 2002. In 2003, she guided Geneseo into a spot in the first round of the SUNYAC playoffs.

Monte graduated from the University of Maryland in 1996 with a baccalaureate degree in American Studies. She was a USWLA Third Team All-American in 1995 and a First Team All-American in 1996. She was chosen as the Division I National Defensive Player of the Year in 1996. Maryland won the Division I national championship in her junior and senior years.

Monte was a member of the United States Women’s Lacrosse National team from 1996-2000.

She was an assistant women’s lacrosse coach at the University of Notre Dame from December, 1996-July, 2000. In August, 200, she was named the Assistant Athletics Director and an elementary physical education teach at the Rocky Hill School in East Greenwich, CT. She left the scholastic ranks to take a teaching and coaching position at SUNY Geneseo in 2001.

Monte has been a member of U.S. Lacrosse since 1995, a member of the IWLCA since 2001, and a member of the NCAA Women’s Lacrosse Regional Advisory Committee since 2002. She was a keynote speaker at the NCAA Women’s Lacrosse Division III Final Four Banquet held at St. John Fisher College in May, 2003.

Melody enters her second season as the assistant coach for the women's lacrosse team at the University of Rochester. A 2006 graduate of SUNY Geneseo, Melody started her lacrosse career as a defensive midfielder. Her junior and senior seasons, she moved to attack and as the leading goalscorer with 51 points and led in ground balls as a senior.

During her undergraduate days at Geneseo, she started every game and was named to the SUNYAC All-Conference Team in 2005 and 2006. Kuzniar was also part of the ECAC Championship win in 2004. She graduated from Geneseo with a BA in Communications.

Kuzniar went to to become an assistant coach at Geneseo before joining Rochester. She has coached at a variety of lacrosse coamps, including the All-American Lacrosse Camp, the Blackdiamond Lacrosse Camp, and the World Class Lacrosse Camp.

Currently, she is enrolled in the Masters program for Higher Education administration at the Warner School of Education at the University of Rochester.