The University of North Carolina women’s lacrosse program has earned the number one overall seed in the 2025 NCAA tournament. This is the 20th consecutive season in the program’s 30-year history that the Tar Heels have heard their name called on selection sunday. They enter the tournament 18-0, having won both the ACC Regular Season and Tournament Championships. The Humphrey Sisters are a big reason for UNC’s dominance thus far, but their journey to getting here was far from linear.
All three sisters played at Darien, which is one of the top girl’s lacrosse programs in the country, with 19 Connecticut state titles. However, they each took different paths coming out of high school. Nicole, who is the oldest of the three sisters, chose Carolina to “challenge [herself] athletically.” Ashley, on the other hand, who is a year younger than Nicole, chose Stanford, as she viewed lacrosse as a “four-year thing,” prioritizing her life after lacrosse was no longer in the picture, and believing Stanford to be a better choice for future life success.
In 2020, when Nicole was a Freshman at UNC, and Ashley and Chloe were a senior and freshman at Darien, Covid hit. This ended each of their seasons, and awarded Nicole with an extra year of eligibility.
The following year, Ashley decided to redshirt her freshman season at Stanford, while Chloe won a state championship with Darien and Nicole made it to the final four with UNC.
It was that fall of 2021 when Chloe committed to UNC as the number one ranked recruit, and that spring of 2022, Ashley set the NCAA single-season record for assists (88) as Stanford won a Pac-12 championship and Nicole won an NCAA championship with the undefeated Tar Heels.
Ashley watched Nicole win a national championship, and decided that was the path that she wanted to take. She played one more year at Stanford, figured out how to graduate early, and transferred to North Carolina in the Winter of 2023. However, before Nicole knew that Ashley was transferring to UNC, she decided that her time with UNC was done after graduating in the Spring of 2023. She chose to take her 5th year out west, at the University of Southern California. She stated “I didn’t know Ashley was going to transfer. I had won a national championship at UNC, and a lot of my classmates were graduating. It felt like it was my time to go somewhere else.” For her, “It wasn’t so much about lacrosse as much as it was about personal development and taking a new step in life, finding a new identity.”
Things took a turn when Nicole tore the Lisfranc ligament in her foot on her first day of practice with USC, which would leave her sidelined for the 2024 season, and leading her to believe she was ready to step away from lacrosse entirely.
While this was a seemingly terrible situation, Ashley immediately saw the positive. She recalls that she called her mom, and said “Oh my God, can Nicole come back to Carolina?” which would allow the three sisters to play together on an organized team for the first time ever.
Meanwhile, Ashley and Chloe were preparing for their first game of the 2024 season at UNC, as Nicole was “out on the West Coast traveling to incredible places — not letting the injury completely tear apart her life,” according to Chloe. However, a nagging pain in Chloe’s foot in January of 2024 turned out to be a potentially career-ending stress reaction, ruling her out for the 2024 season.
Chloe had arrived in Chapel Hill as a freshman, ready to make an immediate impact, so this season-ending injury was devastating. She had Ashley, however, to drive her to her appointments and shower her with endless amounts of love and support, and Nicole, who was only a phone call away, and also recovering from a foot injury.
For Chloe, watching Nicole explore California throughout her injury gave her a new perspective. “Just realizing that you don’t have to mope and feel bad for yourself about these injuries but to just make incredible opportunities out of it,” Chloe said.
Nicole’s injury, however, meant that she never used her eligibility at USC, and the three sisters now had the ability to all call Carolina home in the Fall of 2024. Nicole decided for certain that she was not ready to hang up her cleats just yet, and gave Head Coach Jenny Levy a call. Levy recalls Nicole saying “‘Jenny? You’re going to laugh, but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I’m just not ready to give up lacrosse,’” she said. “‘I’m not done.’
They competed together for the first time in the Spring of 2025 season—Chloe as a redshirt freshman, Nicole and Ashley as Graduate Students. Nicole’s lingering injury has limited her on-field abilities, but for the team, her presence extends far beyond her time on the field. Chloe and Ashley, on the other hand, are making history.
Ashley has 98 points on the season thus far, with 28 goals and 70 assists. Chloe has 97 points on the season, with 73 goals and 24 assists. The two of them lead the team, and are credited for all of UNCs success this season.
On Thursday, both Ashley and Chloe were named top-five finalists for the Tewaaraton award, which is given to the top men’s and women’s player in all of college lacrosse. Chloe is the first freshman to ever reach this stage on the women’s side of the award, and this is only the third time that UNC has ever had two finalists—and the first time that they have been sisters.
Despite all of the accolades, the Humphrey’s will not be satisfied until they are hoisting the National Championship trophy at the end of May. In doing so, it would be the first time ever that three sisters would do it together- and their journey, with all it’s twists and turns, would have a fairy tale ending.