10The men’s lacrosse team had some big time wins this season against schools like Stanford and Purdue. The Seawolves finished the season 8-5 with a win over Nevada. Sonoma State competes in the Western Collegiate Lacrosse League and faces other division one teams but hopes to become an official NCAA team. The Seawolves beat Stanford in their second game of the season 10-8 and beat Purdue in their seventh game of the season 5-4. The Seawolves also had a big win over UCLA, beating the Bruins 9-2.
Defensive midfielder Owen McCarthy said they did very well this year, “beating teams like Stanford and Purdue were big for us, and helped us carry momentum for future games.” One of the highs this season came when attackmen Benen Powers scored the winning goal in triple overtime. McCarthy said, “Benen scoring that goal and rushing the field was one of the best feelings in the world.”
Sonoma State lost its second to last game of the season to Berkeley 10-11. Defenseman Kaleb Kuska said, “I think we played one of our best games of the year against Berkeley. Prior to the game, Berkeley was ranked sixth in the country and took down the former number one ranked team Texas Tech, so for us to even take them into overtime is quite an accomplishment.”
Reflecting on the season, Kuska believes the team fell short in some of the games after being up. Kuska said, “we need to find the extra gear to finish our games with a win.” Kuska credited teamwork for their success throughout the season, “we all work so well with each other and it’s clear that everyone on the team takes the program very seriously.”
The lacrosse program is considered a club even though they recruit players, travel to games, and play big universities, same as collegiate teams. The program is self-founded with the majority of the finances coming from the players. The program is also financially supported by families and friends of the players as well as SSU alumni.
Being team treasurer, Powers hopes for more support from the school, but acknowledges there are some things out of the teams’ control. Powers said he is more focused on obstacles in his control like having access to the athlete gym, “we would love to have more support from the University in ways such as being able to access the varsity weight room. Small wins like this would help us be able to exponentially grow our program and represent our wonderful university on a national scale.”
The Seawolves pulled off a massive win against Nevada in their last game of the season this past weekend. The must win over Nevada punched the Seawolves ticket to the playoffs. The Seawolves will face Stanford in the first round of playoffs on Saturday at noon. The location is to be determined. To follow the statistics of this game and for future seasons, fans can go to sonomaseawolves.com or ssulacrosse.com.
