The Gustavus Women’s Lacrosse team finished its season with a 5-2 record, including a third place finish in its Conference tournament this past weekend

The Gustavus Women’s Lacrosse team recently finished up a very successful season in which it finished with a record of 5-2, while also finishing third in its league playoffs. Started as a club sport in 2003, the Women’s Lacrosse team has been steadily growing and improving despite having players with a wide range of experience levels among the players.

“I played in high school, so when I came to Gustavus I knew they had a lacrosse team,” Junior Captain Clare Dahl said.

“I was told to come to practice by my friend, Clare. She told me to pick it up, and I came to the first practice. Now this is my third year as a captain,” Junior Jodie McGinlay said.

The Gustavus Women’s Lacrosse team played mostly MIAC schools during its season including Carleton, St. Thomas, Hamline and St. Ben’s. However, since the team is only a club sport, it also played some bigger schools such as the University of Minnesota-Duluth and the University of Iowa. The Women played a tough game against the University of Minnesota-Duluth for third place in their league playoffs and ended up winning 11-10. Their toughest game this year came against the University of Minnesota, which they only lost to by one. It was the closest any MIAC school came to beating Minnesota all year.

Playing a club sport that overall doesn’t have much popularity in the Midwest makes it difficult for the Gustavus Women’s Lacrosse team to keep growing every year. However, the women did more than an adequate amount of recruiting and encouraged anyone interested to come out and try the sport.

“We advertised a lot because we take [women] with zero experience whatsoever. We probably had eight or ten [women who] had never played before and had zero experience,” Dahl said.

Despite the women’s club sport status, the Women’s Lacrosse team is very motivated to keep improving from year to year. “We are a pretty competitive team, and we take it pretty seriously for a club sport. We start training after [January Interim] and train from February through when the season starts before Spring Break. We expect a lot out of our team even though some have never played before. Lacrosse is a new sport to the Midwest, and that’s why there are no varsity teams in the Midwest, so it’s important to keep teaching it to new [women] and that’s how the sport grows. This year was the biggest team we have ever been with 10 to 12 new [women] this year,” Dahl said.

Needless to say, the Gustavus Women’s Lacrosse team’s success this season is largely in part to the dedication of the captains, including McGinlay, Dahl, Senior goalie Sarah Windhorst and Junior Allison Huff.

“We’ve had coaches in the past, but this year we didn’t have one. We had four captains [who] acted as coaches and organized all of our travel plans and ran practice. It took a big support system to keep our team running,” McGinlay said.

As a club sport at Gustavus, the Women’s Lacrosse team receives most of its money through Student Senate to help with tournament fees and other expenses. However, the women also did a lot of fundraising, especially with their annual grilled cheese and hot dog fundraiser in the fall and greatly appreciated all the support they received from Gustavus students both on and off campus.

With a growing team and a dedicated group of women, the Gustavus Women’s Lacrosse team has a positive outlook for next season as well as in the future. “We are a pretty young team this year, but we are losing two key seniors including our goalie. We will look to stay competitive next year within our league. We were also the best-conditioned team this year in our league thanks to our conditioning coach, [Junior] Kayla Tacke. We conditioned so much before and throughout the season, and it brought our team together,” Dahl said.

“The Gustavus Women’s Lacrosse team encourages anyone even remotely interested in the sport to come out and try it next season. And why wouldn’t you because to put it simply, ‘We’re cool,’” McGinlay said.