By James Clemetson, Vice Captain
This year was another fantastic one for Men’s and Mixed Lacrosse, with not only great success on the field but also, we saw the club grow in numbers and as ever, our bustling and all-inclusive social side shone through.
Our Men’s 1st team once again won the Southern Premiership for the third consecutive year. This is certainly one of our crowning achievements in the club’s history and something we look to replicate year on year. The boys put on some great shows, first of all the Exeter game at home was a major success hosting hundreds of fans plus Red Bull. The 1s proved too much for Exeter, and then in the quarterfinals of the national cup they faced Manchester, a team with a number of American players. It proved to be a game of seriously high-level lacrosse, again in front of a big crowd.
Our 2nd team remained in their new league, a significant achievement noting the progression of senior players from last year moving into the 1st team, as well as the huge increase in competition from other teams in the league. The team did really well in the cup, unfortunately bowing out to an impressive Imperial side by only 1 goal in extra time.
This year we saw our biggest intake of new players, and as a sport that many people start at university this is an enormous success for us, demonstrating our presence as a sport on campus. In our mixed sessions at the start of the year we had the pleasure of welcoming over 300 attendants as well over 800 email sign ups. This yielded us 227 members in total, an increase of 13 on last year (214).
Varsity this year was a huge success, teamed up with Ultimate Frisbee, there were over 400 spectators, again with Red Bull supporting. The 2s played UWE 1s and our 1s played ALLSTARS, UWE’s alumni team, putting on a great evening of sport.
Individually, one of our new members who began playing this year has been selected for the China International Lacrosse team to tour in South Korea in June this summer, as well as having two players in the English Universities team, and a two more in the reserves.
The mixed side of the club have put strong work going into the performance team and are looking to strengthen it even further with initiatives to drive defence orientated players to add depth to the squad and ultimately aid progression of the team. Whilst for the social team, we saw more away days to remember such as the likes of Exeter, something which we wish to continue by seeing Exeter visit Bristol next season.
As ever we will work offer a two-path entry into lacrosse either via the casual mixed route or the more serious performance lead men’s side of the club and produce players that represent the university at the national and international level. We will continue to push recruitment and drive initiatives to encourage new players into the sport, as well as offering a vibrant social community to foster strong internal relationships and team chemistry.
Overall the season was really successful with high-level lacrosse, and a complete riot along the way. Anyone that has debated coming along to a mixed session on the Downs or to a Men’s session at fortress Coombe I would highly recommend it, it’s an awesome club to be a part of.
Featured Image - Aidan Crawford / Instagram
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