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Just one minute into the 2020-21 season, Victoria Klimek bounced a pass off the boards from her own blue line. At first, it appeared to be a simple clearance for Colgate as both of its defenders skated back into their positions. But in a blur, Rayla Clemons made a beeline to the puck, outpacing the first defender and, with a quick stick lift, won the inside position. 

Clemons tapped the puck past the second defender and rifled her shot into the goal — her first shift, her first shot and the first goal of her Syracuse career, all in rapid time. 

“When I first scored that goal, I was somewhat in shock because I didn’t really think that would happen, but I was really excited,” Clemons said. “But I knew I had to keep my excitement down … because there’s a whole game to play.”

After a three-game point streak to start the season, Clemons is ninth on the team with five points despite missing one game due to an undisclosed injury. For Clemons, her first goal was fitting — she’s always let her speed define her on the ice. It’s turned her into one of the Orange’s (6-8-1, 6-6-1 College Hockey America) best freshmen on an already stacked rookie squad.

“I think in our sport, it’s so spontaneous, things happen so quickly,” head coach Paul Flanagan said. “When you have speed, and she’s got that ability to change gears, she can lure somebody in and shift it and get by them, so that’s something that you can’t teach. You have to have it.”

But one year before coming to SU, Clemons had to find her speed again after suffering a season-ending knee injury in the second game of her senior season for the Pittsburgh Penguins Elite U-19 team. She remembers it being a “freak accident,” where a defender’s stick got caught between her legs, which twisted her knee and resulted in a torn medial patellofemoral ligament tear. 

Clemons underwent surgery to repair her knee a few months later, in November 2019. Soon, Clemons was in physical therapy to slowly regain the stability in her knee. But during her recovery, the pandemic began, and she was forced to continue her physical therapy at home.

“It was a struggle with rehab and getting back to 100% especially before playing at the collegiate level,” Clemons said.

Despite being forced to the sidelines in her last season with the Penguins, Clemons continued to support her team by traveling to as many games as possible. Her hometown of Franklin, Michigan, is five hours from Pittsburgh, so she’s used to the long, five-hour commute to watch games. Clemons once made a three-and-a-half hour trip to Ontario, Canada just to watch her team play. 

But the team was different with their former leading scorer and anchor of the top forward line in the stands, head coach Chris Stern said. Stern thinks Clemons missed maybe two practices in her time with the Penguins — and one was because of a snowstorm. A lot of that comes down to her competitive spirit, which Stern likened to that of current NHL players he’s coached.

When she was just 3 years old, Clemons watched her older brother, Rylan, complete his first season of hockey. Soon after, Clemons joined him on the ice, and the pair began their hockey journeys. Just under a year apart in age, the two would soon compete with each other on and off the ice. 

“It was always about like, who was fastest, who’s more skilled, who has the harder shot, best shot, more goals, everything like that,” Clemons said. “It was always competitive.” 

While Rylan has “always had more natural talent for the sport,” Clemons said she’s needed more hard work and dedication to play at the same level. But in competing with her brother, she’s found the work ethic to keep up with him. If her brother learned a skill in just a few tries, Clemons would keep trying until she learned it just as well, if not better, than him.

It was this competition that led Clemons to eventually play with boys. There weren’t many local girls’ teams in Franklin at the time, so Clemons ended up playing on boys’ teams, where the competition was often tough. But her dedication and skill helped her fit in.

“For the most part, everybody just looked at me like another player,” Clemons said.

Less than a year after recovering from her knee injury, Clemons found herself in central New York, practicing with her new teammates. Flanagan saw that she had the foot speed but was unsure if she had the rest of the skillset to be a strong player on the team. Soon enough, his doubts were quelled, and she was put on a line with the more experienced Klimek and Brynn Koocher for the first game of the season.

Klimek enjoyed playing on the same line as Clemons because of Clemons’ style of play. The senior forward said the Orange have lacked players that play fast and drive to the net, which is exactly what Clemons provides. 

Having provided a quick start to her SU career, Clemons already has professional aspirations. With less than a season under her belt, teammates and former coaches know that it only gets better from here. 

“She’s like the Energizer Bunny. She just never stops,” Stern said.

Published on February 16, 2021 at 12:00 am

Contact Gaurav: gshetty@syr.edu