{"id":21196,"date":"2024-05-28T18:30:29","date_gmt":"2024-05-29T02:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=21196"},"modified":"2024-05-28T18:31:21","modified_gmt":"2024-05-29T02:31:21","slug":"mens-lacrosse-team-resurrected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/mens-lacrosse-team-resurrected\/","title":{"rendered":"Men’s lacrosse team resurrected"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by: Liberty Miller | Lifestyle Editor<\/span><\/p>\n

Western is home to nine intramural club sports teams that compete in organized intercollegiate competitions. While these sports generally perform well, they are not sanctioned by Western\u2019s athletic administration, which often results in a lack of funding, recruiting and little to no recognition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In terms of public exposure, the men\u2019s and women\u2019s lacrosse teams alike have had a fair amount of success, but many club sports teams face challenges with recruitment that leave them with limited options for competition. While the Western lacrosse team has historically been a powerhouse program, their lack of players resulted in a forfeit of conference play last year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The team was even featured in an article written by Andrew Golden for the Lacrosse All-Stars, a media outlet and brand for the sport. The article, titled \u201cWhat Happened to Western Oregon Lacrosse,\u201d stated that, \u201cAbout ten years ago, a school with under 4,000 students in a non-traditional area won their conference six straight times and still holds the record for most conference championships. That school is the Western Oregon Men\u2019s Lacrosse program.\u201d Golden observed that the last posted roster on the website was in 2022, so while the team did not appear to play in 2023, there is a chance they will come back the following year. His article proved to be true, and with a fresh coach and majority freshmen roster, they are rebuilding the program from the ground up.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This grassroots operation of revitalizing the team\u2019s former glory was not in vain \u2014 first-year Coach Wyatt Livengood actively recruited the vast majority of the team, and the newly minted group recently finished an undefeated season within their division of the Men\u2019s Collegiate Lacrosse Association.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jack Livengood was a regular player during the season, and when asked about their absence from the MCLA last year and subsequent success during the 2024 conference, he stated, \u201cLast season we didn\u2019t have enough players to field the team, so we didn\u2019t have a season. This year we barely had any players. We had 11 players, there\u2019s 10 on the field, so that\u2019s one sub. Always running around, that\u2019s a lot of hard work. It kind of brought our team together, and we had the mentality that we just have to work together.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Chris Skelton was a benchmark player for the team this season after his hiatus during the canceled 2023 season. Skelton described why he chose to return to the sport, saying, \u201cI just saw a bunch of dogs out here and I thought, this will be fun. That\u2019s all I saw. We\u2019ve got a bunch of young kids, our team is mainly freshmen and we have no seniors this year, we just had a lot of potential and a lot of commitment \u2014 basically, a lot of energy out here. That was kind of what brought me back out here, it was a whole new team, mindset and coach, and it\u2019s been so much fun this year.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Will Panagakis, a freshman on the team, discussed his experience with facing competition within the club Lacrosse conference. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like, when you step up to the plate, you\u2019ll realize that we\u2019re in the big leagues and I gotta step up. When you step on the field, I don\u2019t know how to explain it \u2014 it\u2019s like a wake-up call really, because everyone is so much bigger than you\u2019re expecting.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When asked about the recruiting prospects for their following season, Skelton said, \u201cWe\u2019re expecting a low amount of guys come in, but we\u2019ve been searching up schools, going and watching their games this past week and a couple weeks ago, we\u2019ve been talking to some of the (high school) seniors, and we\u2019ve got a good amount of interest and kids actually want to come to Western next year, so that\u2019d be fun to see what they actually do.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Panagakis added, \u201cWe were undefeated in the league, so if we get a couple more people we should be pretty good next year. In our league, we play Gonzaga, Central Washington, Puget Sound, Humboldt (Cal Poly Humboldt) and Pacific Lutheran University. Mostly California and Washington teams, but in the spring we\u2019ll play the Ducks (University of Oregon) and the Beavers (Oregon State University).\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Caden Lampert implored students interested in club sports to test the waters: \u201cIf you want to go out and be active, just come out and try it. It doesn\u2019t hurt to say you\u2019re not going to but at least come out and see what it\u2019s all about, because you may love club sports and you may want to keep playing it,\u201d Lampert said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Panagakis encourages Western students to attend club lacrosse competitions: \u201cIf you want to attend a game, I\u2019ve brought a couple of people and they said it was one of the coolest sports they\u2019ve ever come and watched. You don\u2019t understand it when you\u2019re watching it, and that\u2019s the best part \u2014 there\u2019s a whole bunch of stuff going on at all times. Lacrosse is something that\u2019s happening at all times, and that is why I like it so much. If you want to come to a game, they\u2019re so entertaining and you should definitely come,\u201d said Panagakis.<\/span><\/p>\n

Skelton also had a message concerning the lack of coverage for club sports and what students can do to make a change. \u201cShow up and show out, basically just that. I mean, rugby\u2019s playing, swimming\u2019s competing, soccer\u2019s playing, lacrosse is playing, everyone should just show up and have fun and support your team. You all go to Western, so just support everybody.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n



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Contact the author at howllifestyle@wou.edu<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":21197,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3224,3220,3219,3225,3230,3222,3228,3227,3231,3221,3223,3226,3229,608,3218],"class_list":["post-21196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-gnac-lacrosse","tag-lacrosse","tag-mcla","tag-mcla-conference-results","tag-mcla-oregon-lacrosse","tag-mcla-oregon-roster","tag-pacific-northwest-collegiate-lacrosse-league","tag-western-club-lacrosse","tag-western-mens-lacrosse","tag-western-oregon-club-sports","tag-western-oregon-lacrosse","tag-western-oregon-mcla","tag-western-oregon-mens-lacrosse","tag-western-oregon-university","tag-western-oregon-university-lacrosse"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}