Women’s Lacrosse: Aggies ready to buck probation
A small group of vehicles drove single-file out of the Stan Laub Indoor Training Center parking lot Thursday shortly after 11:00 p.m., signaling the end of another women’s lacrosse practice. Nobody complained that practice had come at such a late hour, since it was still an upgrade from playing in the parking lot.
“When the turf fields were covered with snow, we were practicing on blacktop,” said sophomore captain Janessa Woods.
The women’s lacrosse team is in its final probationary season before becoming an official club sport at USU, and it’s used to the late hours.
“The biggest problem early in the season was finding places to practice and times when the majority of the team could come,” Woods said. “Sometimes, the girls don’t get the memo of where we’re practicing. It changes so often because of the weather and things.”
Woods, who is playing in her second season for USU, is eagerly anticipating the changes that will accompany being a club sport.
“We aren’t technically a club team right now,” Woods said. “But if we do everything correctly, we will be next year. Then we get field time, in the Fieldhouse and Stan Laub. We’ll also have home games and the support of the school behind us.”
Woods isn’t the only one excited for lacrosse to be promoted to the club level.
“I like the team we have here,” said freshman attack Kristin Porter. “We’d love more girls to try out. You can’t even get to women’s lacrosse from the campus recreation website, so I think a lot of girls don’t even know about it.”
According to USU’s club sports manual, the process of becoming a club includes demonstrating “interested, involved and committed student leadership capable of organizing and operating the club,” as well as proving there are opportunities to be competitive within the region.
The Aggies routed Northern Colorado 18-1 in their season opener in Colorado, then beat rival Boise State 9-8 in the same weekend to begin the season 2-0.
“We’re doing pretty good. We’re 2-2 right now, and we’ve played some tough teams,” Woods said. “When we played our conference rival Boise, they were working toward beating us all season after last year when we beat them by a point and went to regionals. But we still beat them by one again.”
Boise State will have another shot at revenge Friday at the Salt Lake Classic, hosted by the University of Utah. The Aggies will face the Broncos Friday at 6:45 p.m.
USU will then play a doubleheader on Saturday, taking on the Utes at 3 p.m. followed by Colorado School of Mines at 7 p.m.
“We’re really looking forward to getting to regionals at the end of the season,” Woods said. “It’s something we’re really hoping for.”
The Aggie women’s lacrosse team will play at home for the first time on Saturday, March 29 against both UVU and Wyoming at the Tower fields.
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