Lacrosse
Favorite athlete: Eileen Gu
Favorite team: New Jersey Devils
Favorite memory competing in sports: When I scored my 100th goal against Springfield on their senior night
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Chirping and heckling my club teammates when I play them for high school
Music on playlist: I listen to a lot of Green Day and Tame Impala
Future plans: To play college lacrosse somewhere cold
Words to live by: “I’d rather choke on greatness than starve on mediocrity”
One goal before turning 30: To become a paralegal
One thing people don’t know about me: I really enjoy reading books
By Mary Jane Souder
One look was all it took.
Emily Towey found herself in the unexpected position of filling in for Cheltenham’s varsity field hockey coach when Brianna Gardner – then a sophomore - caught her eye.
“The athletic director at the high school called me one day and said, ‘Do you know anything about field hockey?’” Towey recalled. “I was like, ‘Kind of but not really, but I’ll do this if you need me.’
“That was the first time I met her, and I was like. ‘This girl is an athlete through and through,’ so I went over to her and I said, ‘Any chance you’d be interested in playing lacrosse?’ And she said, ‘Oh yeah, I play lacrosse, I play club lacrosse.’ I was like, ‘No way.’
“Then I asked her who she played club for, and she played for Reign Lacrosse. What’s even cooler is that my first cousin (Melissa Felicetti) coaches her. She told me, ‘You’re going to love her.’”
That conversation marked the beginning of something special for both Towey and Gardner. It turns out Towey – who was coaching middle school lacrosse at Cedarbrook at the time – was debating whether or not to take advantage of the opportunity to coach lacrosse at the high school.
“One of the biggest deciding factors was – I gotta have the chance to coach this girl. I am definitely going to move up to the high school – we have someone that we can really work with,’” Towey said. “A key player that I knew could bring the program into the light and the potential I knew we could get to. We needed a power player like her.”
Fast forward to the spring of 2026. Towey – an assistant her first year at the high school – is in her second year as varsity lacrosse coach. Wins – once so rare for the Lady Panthers – are now almost a common occurrence, and leading the charge for the Lady Panthers is two-year captain Brianna Gardner, who has made a verbal commitment to take her talents to the University of Detroit Mercy (more on that later)
Towey, for one, is not the least bit surprised that the senior standout lived up to expectations and then some.
“Her IQ for the game is so strong,” the Lady Panthers’ coach said. “She sees plays before they happen. She has four or five caused turnovers every single game, so she reads the game really well. She’s all in all the time type of player. You put the ball in her stick, and she’s going to get it in the back of the net when we need it to happen. She’s everything that Philly lacrosse is – gritty, heart, hustle, intensity.”
Back to the beginning
Sports have been part of Gardner’s life for as long as she can remember, but lacrosse was always at the top of the list.
“Growing up I played soccer, I played roller hockey, I was really into field hockey, and I played softball for maybe a season,” Gardner said. “I started playing lacrosse in second grade for Springfield (Spartan Girls Lacrosse Club) because Cheltenham didn’t offer a lacrosse rec program.”
It was not love at first practice for Gardner.
“At first, it was something I wasn’t good at,” she said. “I remember the first practice I went to – I went home in tears, crying because everybody else was better than I was.”
Discouraged a bit but not deterred.
“It was something my grandfather played in college at Hartford,” she said. “So, it was something I could bond with him over. He really helped me get into it.”
Her grandfather – Neil Winter - has played a significant role in Gardner’s life. She was living with her grandparents in middle school when her mother passed away, and shortly thereafter, her grandfather had a major health issue.
No sooner had he recovered than her grandmother, Diane Gardner, passed away.
“Playing lacrosse and field hockey were things that she enjoyed watching me do,” Gardner said. “There is nothing better than having somebody that you love watch you play and then be proud of you.
“That’s why I really dove into lacrosse and really integrated myself in everything that I do – really giving it 100 percent. I look at it like a way to make them proud because that’s something they would have wanted because they enjoyed watching me play.”
Lacrosse helped Gardner get through the tough times.
“Lacrosse was definitely one of the things that drove me,” Gardner said. “I remember a week or so after I lose my grandmother, (my lacrosse club) had a tournament in Delaware.
“My coach told me I didn’t have to go, so I missed the first day, and after the first day went by, we won all of our games, and I felt like I really missed out. On the second day, one of the parents came back up from Delaware, and they brought me down. I played with the team, and we won the championship.
“It felt really good not only do it for her but for my team to support me and be there for me. I feel like it always helps me through the tough times.”
That fall, Gardner – who attended Lansdale Catholic as a freshman – transferred to Cheltenham.
“It was kind of difficult because I didn’t know anybody,” she said. “People knew who I was, but I didn’t have any friends that live around here, so it was kind of difficult to make friends at first.
“I remember the first time I came to the school to get my schedule. My grandpa saw that the field hockey team was outside practicing preseason, and he made me walk up and introduce myself to the coach. He said, ‘You are going to go to practice, and you are going to meet the coach, and you are going make friends because you are going to play.’
“That’s how I made my friend group and how I integrated into the school through sports.”
It’s also through field hockey that Towey – filling in just one game for a hockey coach who was ill – got her first glimpse of Gardner and knew without a shadow of a doubt that she had met a student-athlete who would be the cornerstone of the struggling lacrosse program.
“It’s been such a cool journey,” Towey said. “I was praying to make the right decision to stay in the middle school or move up to the high school, and right then and there when I met her, I knew I needed to coach her. She was the missing piece we needed, and I couldn’t miss out on the chance to coach her.”
A bright future (and not too bad present)
Gardner hopes to continue her lacrosse career at the Division 1 level at the University of Detroit Mercy, which competes in the Mid-American Conference (MAC). While many athletes choose to head south for warmer weather, the Cheltenham senior is not in that number.
“I always knew that I wanted to go somewhere cold,” she said. “I’m really not a heat person at all, so Michigan was always kind of the dream. My coach had a friend who played at Detroit, so she was like, ‘You should
check out the school.’
“I started researching them and their political science program, which is what I want to major in. They have a good program, it’s cold, and it’s lacrosse, so it just fit.”
As for her penchant for cold weather, Gardner admits it’s not typical.
“Everyone thinks I’m weird for it, but I love it,” she said. “Maybe it’s just from playing in the summer heat all the time, playing lacrosse on a hundred-degree turf. I am just ready to be cold. I am ready to put on a thermal and some sweatpants and moccasins.”
Gardner is uncertain of a career goal, but she is not looking to be a lawyer.
“Maybe a paralegal,” she said
For now, Gardner is focused on her final high school lacrosse season. The Lady Panthers - four years removed from a one-win season, three years from a two-win season - are 5-3 after eight games, and Gardner is at the heart of the team’s turnaround.
“Changing things from being complacent to highly competitive is really fun,” Gardner said. “I think that playing club really helped me try to help other people shift and see what level we can play at and how good we can be.”
There’s no denying that Gardner was the catalyst.
“She’s been the only true crossover between my cousin and her (Reign) coach, Melissa Felicetti, who is the one who shaped her into the player she is now as well as Noelle Powell, who’s been the best mentor in growing the CHS program,” said Towey of the connection to Reign and Gardner. “We couldn’t have made the progress we have without Bri. She sets the tone, and there’s no doubt in my mind that both her mom and mom-mom are immensely proud of her. She’s truly something special.”
