USU Men’s Lacrosse takes cross-country trip to Boston

Three games in three days and one red-eye flight. For the Utah State University Men’s Lacrosse club team, a spring trip to Boston was never just about wins and losses. 

The Aggies went 1-2 against Bridgewater State University, University of Dayton and the University of Rhode Island, but head coach Matt Taylor said the scoreline wasn’t the point. 

“Going to Boston is great. We get an opportunity to fly together — to travel together,” Taylor said. “The boys are going to talk about it for years.” 

The trip had been years in the making. Club president Braden Hamblin, a junior biology major, said it came out of a relationship with the East Coast opponents the Aggies had played at neutral sites. When the previous coach scheduled the game and then stepped down, Hamblin and Taylor decided to see it through despite it being Taylor’s first season leading the program. ​     ​ 

“We just kind of scrambled to make adjustments and somehow made it work,” Hamblin said. 

The team arrived on March 6 via a red-eye flight with little sleep and lost their first game. They bounced back the next day against Bridgewater State, a fight Taylor said stood out as one of their best performances all season. The finale went to their opponents, which Taylor said was the strongest team all weekend.  

Hamblin said the losses were easier to brush off given the context. USU lost eight of 10 starters from last year’s roster and returned with 28 first-year players on a roughly 40-man team. ​     ​ 

“I think it was really an identifier of who we are and who we can become,” Hamblin said. 

Taylor pointed to defender Zach Davis as a standout player, calling him a warrior who played nearly the entirety of all the games. Hamblin also highlighted first-year student Texas Wilde, a defensive midfielder stepping into bigger shoes than most first-years. 

“He is learning very quickly,” Hamblin said.  

Beyond the scoreboard, the trip gave players a view into the culture of lacrosse on the East Coast, where the sport gained popularity. Utah only sanctioned lacrosse in high schools about five years ago. The Aggies played one game inside Providence College’s stadium — a Division I varsity facility. 

Hamblin said the biggest culture gap he noticed wasn’t just athleticism. It was game IQ, a product of stronger coaching pipelines in the East. 

“Out here, just because the sport is new, you get a lot of really good volunteer dads who, unfortunately, just don’t have the knowledge of the game,” Hamblin said. 

Regardless, Taylor and Hamblin both said what stuck with them most wasn’t in the competition — it was watching the team come together on and off the field.  

“I’ve got the same five or six buddies that I still meet up with, and we tell the same stupid stories, but we laugh every time,” Taylor said. “That’s the type of thing we want to do for these guys.” 

According to Hamblin, the team piled into six minivans, navigated Boston’s intense traffic and spent a free night exploring downtown. There, they spent time together and visited a chapel tied to the Boston Tea Party. 

“We have a bunch of different personalities, a bunch of people who have different ways they live,” Taylor said. “But they all seem to really enjoy having fun together.” 

According to Taylor, roughly half of the team lives with at least one other lacrosse player. This closeness, he said, carries directly onto the field.  

“That bond, that tight-knit community — that’s what keeps you coming back and working harder for those guys,” Taylor said. 

Like all USU club sports, the team is entirely self-funded. The trip was covered mostly through player dues, with donations from some local businesses connected with players’ families filling the rest of the gaps. Not everyone could afford to go, something Hamblin said he hopes to change in future trips. 

“Coach has a wonderful vision for the team, and that is one day every player could go,” Hamblin said. 

With graduation on the horizon, the roster will lose only four or five players at the season’s end. The team has already signed up for a tournament in Puerto Rico next year. The long-term goal is a national championship. 

“Everything’s in front of us,” Taylor said. “It’s just a matter for the boys to go out there and put that extra effort in.”