As it gets cooler on the Plains, Auburn women's lacrosse prepares to heat up the field.
The 24-woman club team experienced some reshuffling in the offseason, including the rise of Stephanie Grant, sophomore in sciences and mathematics, to its presidency.
"I didn't really like my high school team, so I wasn't sure about playing at Auburn," Grant said. "But when I came to the information meeting, the girls seemed to love each other."
Among the things Grant said the team needs to improve from last year is conditioning.
Arriving to remedy that is Janna Faulkner, the team's de facto coach for 2010.
"I played Division I lacrosse at Duquesne," Faulkner said. "I just graduated, and I just want to keep helping and be a part of the sport. I've been coaching for a long time in high school and middle school, so this is going to be a step up doing college."
Faulkner said her fiance played lacrosse while a freshman at Auburn and enjoyed it enough to recommend the club to her.
"I ended up getting on the website and contacted them," Faulkner said. "I said 'Hey, I'm coming down for a year and would really like to be a part of the team somehow, so if I could help out, be an assistant or be a coach, I'd really love it.'"
Faulkner said one hindrance to the team is that it is largely self-coached.
When women who act as coaches are players themselves and run drills with the team, they can't make critiques and, thus, improvements.
"My role is really to overlook and see what's going on and to really help to give some one-on-one attention," Faulkner said. "Since it's really hard to do that while you're playing, I think that'll give a better position to help with some of the conditioning."
Another advantage of a new season is new faces, according to Jen Bieszczak, sophomore in biomedical sciences.
The team will travel to Nashville, Tenn., for a series of unofficial matches, Oct. 10.
Auburn will face Vanderbilt and Western Kentucky, but Grant has higher goals for her team.
"If we go to play Alabama this year, that'd be huge," Grant said. "We want to redeem ourselves against some of the Florida teams. We just want to kick butt and take names."
Do you like this story? The Plainsman doesn't accept money from tuition or student fees, and we don't charge a subscription fee. But you can donate to support The Plainsman.
