Kyla Sears was never so nervous as when she held the microphone to sing the national anthem before a Princeton University football game this fall.

Sears had never sung before so many fans, though she has performed the national anthem for every women’s lacrosse home game in her Princeton career and for four seasons at Skaneateles High School in central New York.

“I love doing it for our own games,” Sears said. “I feel like I sing it and I’m really, really stressed to do it. And when that’s over, all my jitters are out and then I just get to play lacrosse. I didn’t really have that second facet when I sang at the football game.”

Sears looks forward to singing and playing one final season at Princeton this spring. After the senior attacker and 18 teammates took a gap year while the Ivy League canceled last season due to the pandemic, the Tigers are back. Their Feb. 20 opener at Virginia marked their first formal competition since March 8, 2020 — a 714-day moratorium.

“We kind of picked up with everybody like we’d never left,” Sears said. “It felt like I was back in March and just coming back after a long weekend.”

Sears, a second-team All-American as a sophomore in 2019, already had 29 points through five games before COVID-19. It’s not the first time that she experienced the heartache of a lost season. She tore the ACL in her right knee the day before the first game of her junior season at Skaneateles.

“The only difference is in high school, like anybody who goes through an injury, you feel a little isolated,” Sears said. “You don’t have the same connections of being with your teammates on the field. This time around, I got to go through this with 20-30 of my best friends who also fell in the same boat.

“It makes coming together and getting back on the same field after a whole year off that much more special. It really brought us closer.”

Sears also missed six games at the start of her senior season at Skaneateles. She tore her meniscus in the same knee in a season-opening loss. Skaneateles lost three more games before Sears returned, sparking a 15-game winning streak that culminated in the 2017 Class D state championship. Sears scored to send the game to overtime and then buried a free position to lift the Lakers to a 12-11 win over Bronxville.

“Her walking back on the field playing just made our team better. They played better, they played faster, they played harder, they played stronger because she’s such a role model,” Skaneateles coach Bridget Marquardt said. “You always say you can’t win or lose games because of one person, but you certainly can when she has that impact on the other 22 players.”

Sears bookended her high school career with championships — she started playing varsity in eighth grade and was a freshman on Skaneateles’ Class C state title team in 2014 — and was named the USA Lacrosse National Player of the Year as a senior.

“I used to see this little blonde girl in sixth grade playing wall ball up near our practice facilities,” Marquardt said. “And she was there every day. Every day. Right and left hand. This little peanut of a girl.”

Sears doesn’t look strikingly different now, but at Princeton she has added significant muscle. Her bio says she’s 5-foot-4.

“That’s a lie,” she said. “That’s with cleats on.”

What Sears lacks in height she makes up in other areas. Princeton had no problem handing the keys of the offense to a rookie. She set the Ivy League freshman record for goals (64) and points (83) in 2018. Sears’ numbers jumped as a sophomore, though she did her scoring in new ways with 55 goals and 40 assists.

“She is so determined,” Princeton coach Chris Sailer said. “She is little, but just incredibly fierce and determined and quick and persistent. She’s so tough on the ride, great on the transition — all parts of her game are complete. It’s been exciting to watch her, as good as she was coming in, to continue to improve with each passing year.”

Sears also played soccer in high school, but lacrosse was always her favorite sport. Her father, Brewster, played at Hobart and introduced her and her two younger brothers to lacrosse. He and some friends also created the Outlaw Ladies club team.

“I always really stuck to lacrosse,” Sears said. “I love the fast pace of the game. I really love how it can be kind of morphed into a lot of little games. I think the sport is constantly evolving. There’s a ton of opportunity to be creative with it.”

The creative opportunities are what pulled Sears into the new World Lacrosse Sixes discipline last year. She showed off her improved stickwork competing for the U.S. team against Canada and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy at the World Lacrosse Super Sixes event at USA Lacrosse in October.

“I grew up in upstate New York playing box lacrosse indoor my whole life,” said Sears, who finished the weekend with seven goals and four assists in three games. Her Princeton teammate, defender Marge Donovan, also competed for the U.S. “It felt like that, but being on a field outside and having that same minimum numbers and space to play is really fun to me.”

It felt good to get back on the field in any capacity. During her gap year, Sears worked remotely for a strategic communications firm. When she was home in Skaneateles, Marquardt would see her shooting on the high school field and working out, and Sears’ mother, DeAnn, who works in the athletic department at the school, felt like she was in a time warp. Sears also spent time living in Utah with Princeton teammates.

“The best way I could describe it is it felt like studying abroad,” she said. “A lot of collegiate athletes don’t get that opportunity just because the nature of having to practice all year round. It was great.”

Returning to the Princeton campus this fall brought a renewed sense of appreciation, gratitude and excitement for all the Tigers. Sears has lined up a consulting job in New York after graduation and will not use her extra year of NCAA eligibility elsewhere.

Ending her collegiate career like she did her high school career with a championship and alongside her friends — that’s how she wants to go out.