The group is set! This past weekend at the South of the Boarder Tournament in North Carolina, I stood next to 17 other women as we were introduced as the 2009 USA World Cup Team. Hearing that for the first time gave me goose bumps. And even now, I feel the chills and adrenaline creep up my back!

Every year the Ivy League preseason is allowed to start practice on February 1st. As a former Ivy player, it only seemed natural that the final day of tryouts/cuts for the World Cup Team would be on February 1st, and the final roster be announced soon after. As a collegiate player, Feb 1 always marked the beginning of the new season and finally being able to enact the plans from the previous 9 months. We could finally become a unit: coaches and a full roster. This year, Feb 1 marked the same thing: four years of anticipation finally coming to a close with the experience of total excitement for the World Championship and working towards it as ONE unit.

The South of the Boarder Tournament marked our last group get together until we will see each other in training camp in June. Luckily it is college season time, otherwise I feel like the time would pass far too slowly. Even still, I am already having withdrawal symptoms from missing my teammates. As surreal as being named to the World Cup Team is, I know I can still look to my left and to my right and see some of my favorite people in my teammates. So, until June, I will continue to train for my team as we work towards a World Cup Championship! GO USA!!

Albany, NY-On February 3, 2009 the IWLCA relased their Pre-Season poll for DI Women’s Lacrosse. Of those 20 teams six were deBeer Sponsored teams;

#4-University of Virginia

#11-University of Notre Dame

#12-Vanderbilt University

#13-Dartmouth College

#14-University of New Hampshire

#18-Stanford University

deBeer Lacrosse wishes all of our sponsored teams best of luck this season!

STANFORD, Calif. – Promise. Potential. Possibilities. When the new Stanford women’s lacrosse coaches describe the landscape that brought them West, those were the thoughts that made the job so enticing.

Stanford has had its share of success. The Cardinal is a four-time defending Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament champion. It reached the NCAA tournament in 2006. It’s ranked No. 18 in the national preseason coaches’ poll and is playing one of the toughest schedules in the country, one that includes seven Top-20 teams and three East Coast trips.

But it’s the allure of what has yet to be achieved that’s so compelling. The reason: Because at Stanford it’s possible. History proves it.

Nineteen of Stanford’s 35 sports have combined to win a total of 109 national team championships; the school has won 14 consecutive Director’s Cups symbolic of the nation’s best overall sports program; and, as Northwestern has shown, lacrosse championships can be won outside the strongholds of the Eastern-dominated sport.

“We’re trying to find those players that will help us build a national championship team,” said assistant coach Brooke McKenzie, who accompanied head coach Amy Bokker from George Mason. “A lot of programs say they’re capable of doing that, but we’re one of the schools that can. People understand and respect the type of potential that Stanford represents.”

So, where does Stanford begin? How about March 9, 2008? That was the day Stanford stunned visiting Penn, 10-8, to complete its second upset of a top-10 team within a week. Earlier, Stanford beat Notre Dame, 13-9. The significance grew as the season wore on. The loss was the only one for Penn until the NCAA championship game. Notre Dame also went on to the NCAA tournament.

For a Stanford team that returns 21 of its 29 players and six starters, those victories from a 12-8 season may provide a lasting effect.

“They put themselves on the map,” Bokker said. “And I feel a high level of confidence. Our players want to be established as a top team, and to be recognized nationally as so many of the teams at Stanford are.”

A new coaching staff that also includes Jaime Sellers, a standout at William and Mary last season, spent a large amount of its fall efforts getting to know what it had. That meant evaluating players, solidifying defensive principles and techniques, and determining the styles that work best for its personnel.

What they discovered was a versatile team with good instincts, scoring ability, solid goalkeeping, athleticism and depth. With those attributes, the team will play a high-paced style that features defensive pressure to create turnovers and trigger fastbreaks.

“We couldn’t hold them back,” Bokker said proudly. “I feel like they were busting at the seams to really start showing what they can do.”

Now comes that chance.

Jacksonville Lacrosse Announces First Signing Class

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (Feb. 5, 2009) — With its inaugural season set for the spring of 2010, the JU women’s lacrosse team announces the signing of 18 players that will make up that team. Jacksonville head coach Mindy McCord has brought in a talented class that will make up the core of her team, joining the more than 10 players that are sitting out this year as redshirts.

“I am so pleased with this group of young women that are coming to JU and will be a critical part of the building process of this program,” McCord said. “They know they are blazing a trail for the future and are excited about the challenge.”