When all eight seniors on the Oregon lacrosse team chose to play for Oregon four years ago, they knew what they were not getting into.
They were not going to be playing at a lacrosse program with history, tradition or fans.
They were not going to be playing in a region that readily understood the game.
But being able to build a program from the first recruiting class – their class – drew them to the upstart team.
And because of that, they must have known that senior day would be that much harder.
The Ducks’ final two conference games of the regular season this weekend against California and Saint Mary’s will be played out on an emotional backdrop for those eight players.
The Ducks have never lost against Saint Mary’s since the program began, while Oregon holds a 3-2 series edge over California. Both games start at 1 p.m.
The senior weekend will be a matchup of conference opposites. Cal enters atop the MPSF standings with its 3-0 league record. Saint Mary’s, however, sits at the bottom of the league with an 0-2 record in league. The Gaels average more than 24 turnovers a game, and are last in the conference in goals per game, averaging 7.77.
Hailed as “the new kids on the block” when they arrived, the seniors – Carrie Bateman, Jana Bradley, Jenny Browne, Lindsay Killian, Liora Lobel, Laura Lynch, Jen May and Theresa Waldron- have built what was a fledgling lacrosse program in 2004 to one with a ranking as high as No. 12 this season, all while teaching fans in Eugene and Springfield the difference between a draw control and a free position shot.
“People finally are like, ‘Oregon, they’re legit.’ We’re not just a bunch of freshmen anymore,” senior midfielder Jen May said. “We were the face of the program for a while, we were the new kids, we’d never played Division I lacrosse and now we’ve been there and we’ve played with the top teams.”
Though the Ducks’ season will continue through the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Tournament, held in Berkeley, Calif. from April 30 to May 3, the seniors’ final home game at Papé Field is yet another reminder for the class that their season and careers are almost over.
“Senior night’s coming,” attacker Lindsay Killian said. “I don’t think it’s hit me yet.”
In the statbook, the players have literally written the record book. Waldron, May, Killian and Bradley have all reached the 100-point plateau, with May reaching triple digits in goals, ground balls and caused turnovers as well, the only player to do so.
As the coaches charged with initially selling the senior class on Oregon despite its lacrosse shortcomings, Jen Larsen and Robert Bray Jr. are also preparing for their emotional 25th and 26th, and final, games at Papé with the seniors.
Larsen believes that the team banquet on Saturday night will be a time to look back at their four years together.
“You can’t even imagine what that first year was like,” Larsen said. “If we weren’t playing well I couldn’t just go to the seniors and say ‘You’ve got to call everyone out.’ Now we can laugh about it.”
When asked what it was like build a program from the beginning, defender Carrie Bateman best summed up their experience, asking, “Do we have enough time?”
Larsen said the same ‘adventurous’ quality that brought the seniors to Oregon in the first place has allowed them to be leaders of the following recruiting classes.
“I think that each player that came out here had a maturity level that was beyond others that chose not to come,” Larsen said. “They have an adventurous side, and are risk-takers.
“Choosing to come to a brand new program takes a lot of weight to put on your shoulders.”
For the seven seniors (excluding Jana Bradley) who came from lacrosse-rich areas on the East Coast, playing in front of fans curious about the sport was difficult at first. Educating fans about the sport wasn’t the easiest, either.
Defender Laura Lynch said fans didn’t understand its likeness to field hockey, another relatively unknown sport in the West, so soccer became the easiest comparison.
“So we just said we played on a soccer field, and it was like soccer, but with sticks,” Lynch laughed.
Midfielder Jenny Browne said the realization that their final home game is this weekend has begun a hard process of dealing with life without lacrosse.
“I think the end of college is hard for everybody but I feel like we’re leaving a family and this is something we’ve done that dictates what we eat, when we eat, when we wake up and it really has run our lives for four years,” Browne said. “It’s a little surreal to only have it be 20-something days away from being over.”
After this weekend, the Ducks travel to New England for games against New Hampshire and Vermont on April 18 and 20. Although this will mark the final home game, the feeling of the end won’t hit until after the MPSF Tournament, said May.
“The last game is sweet but we’ll still practice every day at Papé. Until that last tournament game, that’s when it’s really going to kick in and be like, ‘What do we do now?’”
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