By Gabriella DeCampo
While the Towson University varsity women’s lacrosse team became conference champions and went all the way to the NCAA tournament, the school’s women’s club lacrosse team was having an impressive year of its own.
Last week, the club lacrosse team traveled to Virginia Beach to play in the Women’s Collegiate Lacrosse Associates National Championship.
“It meant a lot to us because last year was a big rebuilding year and we didn’t perform as well as we had hoped,” said Clara Schneider, a sophomore who is the vice president of the team. “But then this year we really came together as a team and put in a lot of hard work so it was really nice to see all that hard work pay off.”
After losing its first game of the season to Maryland, the team did not give up hope. It would go on to win every other game in the regular season, and 3-0 at the Regionals.
“Winning every game is such an accomplishment and a goal in many people’s lives,” said Ann Westlake, a freshman on the team. “Every time we won it got me more excited to make it to nationals.”
The team secured its automatic bid to Nationals when it defeated Virginia Tech 11-9 in the Regionals.
“Tech was beating us by three at the half, but we came out at the start of the second half and changed the momentum quickly because we knew how much this game meant,” Schneider said.
The ladies then boarded their buses and were on the road to Virginia Beach.
“We got to be on a little vacation with gorgeous weather and do one of the things we love most, play lacrosse,” Westlake said.
Towson was the ninth seeded team out of the 16 that participated in the tournament.
Towson lost its first game to Michigan, but then won all three remaining games to take the top spot in the National consolation bracket.
“We beat the number two seed by one goal with six seconds left,” said Leanna Gustavsen, who is a junior defensive player. “We were really happy since we were the number nine seed and we beat the number two seed.”
“We still get to say we beat the number two team. Not many teams can say that,” Westlake said.
The team is proud of what it has done. It knows that it is not the varsity team, but some still feel that it should be recognized.
“I think it’s so unfair how they get more attention than us,” Westlake said. “We barely got field space and no one knew we were going to nationals.”
Other members do not see this as a bad thing, because they play for the love of the sport.
“We don’t play club lacrosse to get attention or be in the spotlight or anything like that” Schneider said. We really just play because we all love lacrosse and wanted to continue playing the game.”