Embrace the fun: Clemson lacrosse has high expectations for first season

Clemson lacrosse opens its inaugural season at home versus Wofford on ACC Network at 2:30 p.m. Saturday (Clemson athletics photo).

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Thu Feb 09 17:58:16 GMT-04:00 2023

CLEMSON – Yes, Clemson is new to the sport of lacrosse, but the Tigers expect to be competitive right away.

Clemson announced the addition of women’s lacrosse back in June of 2021, and the historic first season is set to get underway this weekend. Clemson is slated to play 17 regular season games, 10 of which will be played on their home turf at Historic Riggs Field. Competing in the ACC, one of the most competitive conferences in NCAA lacrosse, Clemson will face six opponents ranked in the final 2022 NCAA RPI Top 20.

Clemson will kick off their first season at home on Feb. 11 against Wofford. The Tigers will then open ACC play a few weeks later on Feb. 25 where they will travel to South Bend, Ind., to face Notre Dame. Head coach Allison Kwolek invited the media to attend a practice earlier this week and said she has high expectations for the new program.

“When a lot of people think about new programs, they think it’s going to take them years to be at a high level. But I think for us; it’s what I said to all of them when I was recruiting them, that we want to be competitive right away,” Kwolek said. “When we step on a field, we don’t want to look like a team that is in year one, but through our practices and through our growth, I think you can see that. I think that’s the expectation for us, it’s to be competitive.”

Kwolek had served as head coach at the University of Richmond since 2013, which includes a 64-16 (.800) winning percentage, a 27-5 conference record and two conference tournaments and two league regular-season championships in the past five seasons.

Now she takes on the challenge of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

“It’s exciting,” Kwolek said. “Obviously, the ACC is the best conference in the country, and I think being able to play such great teams, teams that have been established for so long, just to have that competition every year is really exciting and an awesome opportunity.”

It’s one of the reasons she chose to help start the Clemson program.

“The standards are definitely high,” Kwolek said. “I think that’s why I wanted to come here, to be in an environment where the resources are already in place, to be able to recruit student-athletes that knew they would have everything around them to be successful. We have joked about it with (AD) Graham [Neff] and everybody about softball, but it’s the environment I wanted to be in; it’s the next step for me to be around teams that are playing at the highest level, around student-athletes that are competing at the highest level, that want to be the best. Again, for me to bring in the top student-athletes around the country that want to come here, it’s only been really positive, and great things ahead.”

Even if you don’t know anything about lacrosse and have never seen it played, Kwolek said to come out and embrace the fun.

“I think the big thing is, is that it’s a fun game,” she said. “It’s a fun sport. Yes, there will be rules, and things that happen on the field that you won’t understand, but I think because it’s such a high-scoring game, there are so many goals. I think it’s also a sport where even if a team gets up by five, the other team can still win because you can score so many goals so quickly. I think for our players, a lot of energy on the field, a lot of fun to watch those goals that are happening on one end, but also those strong defensive stops. Again, it’s a different sport in some ways, but really similar to basketball, soccer and ice hockey, and it’s just a nice combination of all of that.”