The Article below was published in Vol. 135, Issue 3 of the Lake Forest College Stentor on November 8, 2019
By Emily Mosher ’21
Sports Editor
With the recent announcement of varsity lacrosse coming to Lake Forest College in 2021, the campus has been buzzing. Those most excited? The current club lacrosse players. In two years, the college plans to have a full men’s and women’s varsity lacrosse program, coaches and an implemented recruiting process.
Although many of the club players now will graduate before they get to experience the program, the team is still excited for those freshmen and sophomores that will get to play on varsity. Bob McKeon ’21, who has been playing since third grade, agrees with this sentiment.
“It’s been a lot of fun. I’ll be graduating the year before the varsity begins, but it’ll be good for the guys that are the class of 2022 and 2023 that are here already that will be able to compete,” McKeon said.
There will be a new turf field built for the sport due to the number of facilities required to add another varsity sport. Through the support of committed donors, the school will be able to build the field. Women’s player Abby Vaubel ’20 filled in the gaps for the turf field details.
“We are going to get a new turf field. With all of the donors, we will need to build a turf field in order to have another varsity sport. It will be multi-purpose turf, but will be in the back of the softball field. All sports will be able to use it, but it will also be for us and our games,” Vaubel said.
Senior captain Jared Applegate ’20 is also excited for the program to grow. Applegate had never played lacrosse before he came to Lake Forest, so seeing the people that taught him the sport he loves finally get a program backed by the school was exciting.
“I had a couple of people, who have graduated now, but they taught me how to play and everything and just practicing a lot, always meeting people at the gym. Always practicing, everyone was really welcoming and easy to get along with, so that was nice,” Applegate said.
Luke Butts, who also assists as a coach for the football program, is the supervisor for the men’s club team right now. Amanda Walker is the supervisor for the women, but the girls say she is more of a supervisor than a coach.
Megan Lyke ’21 says that the program mainly consists of women’s hockey players, who move to lacrosse after their hockey season is over. Lyke says that the varsity program was already being talked about before she even came to Lake Forest.
“It was kind of in the works before I even got here, just talking about it. But I did kind of see a little bit of progress. But it was mainly the school that stepped forward and pushed it to start up again. I think recruiting will be starting up soon,” Lyke said.
Vaubel said that the most crucial part of the varsity growth was keeping the program alive.
“There’s been rumors flying around for about two years now and they just confirmed it, that they wanted to take it to varsity for awhile. It was important that we kept the club alive and we kept growth excited so that we could still have that program for them when they wanted to take it to the next level,” Vaubel said.
McKeon says the school had the biggest hand in things, pushing the program to happen.
“I think it was the school on its own. We have always had a pretty small team and we heard the rumors about making a varsity team for the past year, and so it was really the school that kind of pushed to create a varsity team. I think one of the reasons that they wanted to do that was to boost momentum and also have another varsity sport on campus,” McKeon said.
Last season, the men were 6-2 overall, while the women were 5-2. Right now, they play teams in the region, but they will be joining existing conferences once they become a sanctioned varsity sport. The school expects to hire coaches by spring or summer of this academic year, and they will start recruiting for preseason in fall 2021
Overall, the varsity lacrosse program should be a great addition to athletics and the campus as a whole. We look forward to the future of Lake Forest Lacrosse!
