UKC Sports Spotlight: Women's Lacrosse

Sports Spotlight returns this week with Women's Lacrosse. 1st Team Captain Emma Ursel and PR and Comms Madison Smith answered some of InQuires questions. They talked of Varsity, expansion and team spirit.

How is the season going so far?

Emma Ursel (1st Team Captain): For the 1st team it’s going really well. We’ve had six games and six wins, plus we’ve got through to the cup round, so I’m very happy with it. The team has gelled well. The 2nd Team have improved a lot and we have some great development players. It’s nice to see the girls in the club play together.

Maddie Smith (PR and Comms): We recruited a lot of girls this year. The Freshers training is going really well, we are trying to get them into teams. Some of them have even made 2nd team, which is amazing!

I’ve heard you’ve had a large influx of members this year. How have you combated that?

Emma: We now have five teams instead of two to integrate the teams. Our 1st and 2nd teams train together on Monday and Tuesday, and then the other three teams on Sunday. Then we give match play to each, through BUCS and friendlies. We like to play against each other for challenges and to up our game. Then we have socials on Wednesdays, so we try the best to fit everybody into that social even though we have fifteen extra members this year. Which is basically a team.

Maddie: In terms of development, they have been organising tournaments so they get more game time, which is great for the freshers.

Lacrosse is known for being a social sport. How are the socials going?

Maddie: A lot of girls turn up, we’ve tried to intergrate them! We have a lot of joint socials to meet a mix of people.

Emma: It’s been great to build those relationships with the other teams so we can support each other in charity events, and they’ve all been really fun. We are close with Men’s Lacrosse in terms of socials, they’re our family. We’ve got on well with American Football, a lot of our girls support their games and attended their charity event Black and White night.

Maddie: Quite a lot of rugby boys came to our event, so we’ve improved our relationship with them.

Emma: Ballroom and Latin also attended our event, and two of our players competed in their charity Strictly Kent Dancing event. We have definitely improved relations with them.

In regards to Inclusivity in your club, how do you believe you are inclusive and charitable?

Maddie: A lot of our girls got involved in This Kent Girl Can this year, playing American Football and Trampolining. We do include people from all different rounds of life. A lot of people don’t play lacrosse before university, so we are all joining together. We supported the boys a lot of Movember, I pushed that as PR.

Emma: We raised £1485 at our Lacrosse Charity Ball event, which was amazing. Our Varsity kit is also designed with the inclusivity strand in mind. One of our members Isabella Ebdon-Price organised a charity collection for refugees in Levos. We raised a lot of money for that, which was amazing.

Maddie: We are doing a 24-hour pass in partnership with RAG and Meningitis, in which we book a place on the plaza and pass a ball for 24-hours. Anyone can get involved. We also want to get involved with the #Enough campaign, organised by Molly Hope.

Emma: Everyone should get involved in Lacrosse. It's a welcoming sport.