Men's varsity club lax starts season with three wins

In its first full season under varsity status, the University of Richmond men's lacrosse team moved to 3-0 to start the season after a recent trip to Florida.

The team posted a season-opening win at Eastern Carolina, 17-5, before traveling to the University of Miami Feb. 24-25 and gaining victories over the host Hurricanes, 8-6, and University of Central Florida, 16-14.

This season marks the first for Richmond in the Men's Collegiate Lacrosse Association (MCLA), having moved from the National College Lacrosse League (NCLL) last season.

Richmond coach Glenn Carter, hired in October 2010 after the team became a varsity team, said that the new league had been a big step up in the quality of opponents for the team. The NCLL was "really ragtag," Carter said. By comparison, the MCLA rules "basically follow NCAA rules to a 'T,'" he said.

The MCLA was essentially a by-product of Title IX, serving as an outlet for schools that had to demote men's varsity scholarship teams in order to comply with the gender equality measures, so many of the schools had attracted Division I-caliber athletes, Carter said. In its current form, Carter said he would have equated it to Division-III lacrosse.

The bump to varsity and the better competition has heightened the intensity and commitment required, team members said.

"With the entire group, there wasn't a full commitment [before varsity status]," junior team captain Clay Palmer said. "If you missed [practice], no one would ever call you out."

Now, the team policy is just three excused absences from practice during the entire season, something that has been a stabilizing force for the team, Palmer said. He and junior Charlie Hudson both lauded the coaches for their commitment to coaching, recruiting and their knowledge of the game.

Hudson said that being able to play lacrosse had not been a factor in his deciding to come to Richmond, but he and Carter had both agreed that had been changing, most notably with the freshman class, the first one fully recruited by Carter.

Freshman Mike Buckbinder said, although lacrosse was not a big factor for him in his college choice, it had played a role in the decisions of many of his freshman teammates.

Hudson said the changes in commitment and coaching had resulted in an increase in team identification and camaraderie.

"This lacrosse team is now becoming what we are defined by," he said. He said that other organizations such as fraternities may have still come first at times, but the expectations had been raised by the incoming classes and the upperclassmen who had stuck around through the years.

Those expectations have been met to this point, especially considering that the team had never previously played any of its opponents this year, and they came into the season highly unheralded as a newcomer to the league, Palmer said.

Palmer said he thought the team had the talent to make a run at the conference championship, which had been his goal for the team since seeing the improvement it had made over the past year, though he had also recognized the difficulty of that goal.

"Starting off 3-0 is nice," Palmer said, "and I think we're happy to be here, but I think our toughest competition is yet to come."

Contact reporter Casey Glick at casey.glick@richmond.edu