Although the Grand Valley State University women’s lacrosse team will not begin its inaugural season until March, the Lakers are already preparing to build a program from the ground up.

Lacrosse was added as a varsity sport in September of 2009 but spent the entire 2010-2011 academic year preparing a roster.

For Alyssa Neumen, a freshman midfielder, the anticipation to start competing this spring has provided plenty of motivation to hit the ground running throughout the offseason.

“The fact that this is the first year for this program motivates me to make a statement,” she said. “In order to make this statement you have to be well prepared. That means being well conditioned and on top of your game.”

With the incentive to make a statement the Lakers have not only focused on conditioning, but also participated in four fall ball tournaments.

“We played Division I, Division II, Division III and NAIA teams,” said GVSU head coach Alicia Groveston. “We got a good mix of everything we needed to do and we had a lot of successes. It was interesting, you could see the evolution taking place from the very first game that we played.”

Groveston has put an emphasis on playing in game-like situations in order to get 27 players, who have never played in an NCAA game, ready to take the field in March.

“You can practice and practice and practice, but playing is totally different animal,” she said. “We play as much as we can, we do a lot of game situational type things to try to get us prepared, but there is nothing like playing an actual game against other opponents that aren’t your teammates.”

Freshman midfielder Jordan Luberto said Groveston has done a great job in preparing GVSU for its first season of competition.

“She scheduled us a pretty good fall ball season, which helped us prepare a lot,” Luberto said. “We went out east and played some pretty good teams, so that let us see what our competition was going to be like.”

Off the field, GVSU has focused on team building, community service and raising awareness for its sport around campus.

“We’ve got the novelty of being new,” Groveston said. “We’re trying to get our players to bring their friends out and get their friends excited about what’s going on, but our big thing is the community. We’ve done a lot of clinics and camps and we’re trying to get the lacrosse fans on board. “

As the Lakers try to bring awareness to the newest GVSU sport, they are relishing the opportunity to start building the lacrosse program.

“I feel like people don’t have high of expectations for us, being that it’s our first season,” Luberto said. “A lot of us came from pretty successful teams in high school and not a lot of us are used to losing, so that motivates us to succeed.”

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