East Carolina University will welcome women’s lacrosse at the beginning of the 2017-18 academic school year. The addition of this will increase East Carolinas varsity sport count to 20 and make it the 11th women’s athletic program on campus. In my eyes this addition has been a long time coming looking at how popular the sport is in North Carolina.
Of course to get the ball rolling ECU will need to begin the recruiting process for coaches and players. The average roster for a lacrosse team has 28 girls and ECU is planning to hand out 12 scholarships.
This has been the first time since women’s golf in 2001 that a varsity sport has been added at East Carolina.
ECU is the eighth university in the state of North Carolina who now has a womens lacrosse team. UNC, Duke, and ELON are among some others. Combined, there are 19 programs playing at the D1 level. Including those in our conference such as Temple, Cincinnati, and Connecticut.
Women’s lacrosse has already been offered at ECU as a club sport but it is a very exciting step to see it taking on a full role as a solid athletic program at the university. This addition shows how ECU is working to implement female friendly sports programs.