No. 8 USU Lacrosse needs your help to make nationals
Utah State Men’s Lacrosse Club is looking to make the trip to Round Rock, Texas for the USA Lacrosse National Tournament in May and is looking for fans to help them make the trip.
The team is a club sport and has already exhausted the funding they receive from the school. A large amount of the expenses come out of the student-athletes’ pockets. The team has started a fundraiser for $15,000 on the website gofundme.com to help pay for the trip to Texas.
“We know that $15,000 is a big ask,” head coach Scott Bingham said. “Every little bit helps alleviate some of the pressure on these guys to raise that money.”
The money would be used for flights and hotels for the 35 players and the coaches in Round Rock. Nothing is stopping the team from making the trip.
“We’re making the trip down. If that has to come from guys picking up a few extra shifts at work, donating plasma, if we need to set up a food truck and send proceeds to the team,” Bingham said. “The team is working very, very hard to raise that money on their own.”
The team has also been putting on lacrosse clinics to help raise money for the tournament.
USU hasn’t officially made the national tournament, but Bingham is confident they will receive an invite.
“With the performance the guys turned in, it’d be silly to not invite us, so we’re about 95 percent sure that we’re being invited down,” Bingham said.
USU is ranked No. 8 in the nation for Division II with a 10-5 record. Five of the wins come from nationally-ranked opponents.
The national tournament isn’t the only tournament the team is looking at. On April 22 the team heads down to Provo to play against The University of Utah in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse Conference Championships. With a win versus Utah, they would play the winner of Montana State v Air Force for the championship on April 23.
USU is currently the defending conference champions from 2019 because due to COVID-19 there was no championship in 2020 or 2021.
USU lost to Utah 7-12 earlier in the season.
“They’re very talented. They’re very athletic, and they’re very well-coached,” said Bingham. “We’ve just been focusing on the things that gave us such a successful season so that when we square off with them we’re in prime form doing what we do best.”
If the team beats Utah they are not afraid of Montana State or Air Force.
“We expect that no matter which one of them comes out victorious in their own matchup, we can beat the winner and take the conference championship,” said Bingham.
USU lost to Montana State 8-10 in a very competitive game earlier in the season and beat Air Force 11-5 this season. A conference championship would make it virtually impossible for the team not to make the national tournament.
According to Bingham, this season is just the beginning for USU.
“If there’s one thing people should know about the lacrosse team at Utah State, it’s that not only are we one of the best teams in the country, but we are also getting better,” Bingham said. “So whether they’re a fan of the sport whether they’ve played lacrosse, or they have a history of it, or they just support Aggie athletics. Utah State’s lacrosse team is on the fast track to be one of the most successful programs in the nation.”