WIAC Women's Lacrosse picking up steam

One of the newest sports to hit the WIAC Conference has been women’s lacrosse. In the past five years, there have been five schools in the UW system to adopt a lacrosse team, with UW-River Falls starting the trend back in 2019.

Since then Stout, Eau Claire, Stevens Point, and La Crosse have all followed suit and suited up to field their own respective teams. The addition of Colorado College and Southwestern University has rounded out the WIAC field to seven teams, making for another competitive season.

Coming into the 2024 season, Southwestern University of Texas and Colorado College were both looking for a division. Having had women’s lacrosse teams for several years, they had shuffled around from conference to conference, with limited opportunities to face off against nearby schools down South.

Lacrosse has typically been an East Coast-dominated sport, so for teams in the South and Midwest, it has historically been difficult to find competition. However, in recent years with the sport’s popularity rising, more nearby universities have started to offer them as club sports, and even university-sponsored teams.

Experience has proven to pay off for several WIAC teams, as the UW-River Falls women’s squad has been in the driver’s seat of the conference for the last several years. The skill gap has not been large this year though, as several other schools have put together good seasons to this point.

Although the Falcons of River Falls lead the way with a 10-3 overall record, 10-4 Colorado College, and 9-5 UW-La Crosse are close behind in second and third place, respectively. From there, 9-3 UW-Eau Claire, 2-6 Southwestern, 1-9 UW-Stevens Point, and 3-9 UW-Stout round out the rest of the leaderboard in the WIAC.

Two of the top teams will face off against each other on April 20 when River Falls and La Crosse square off in a Saturday afternoon contest. This game will serve as a rematch after the Falcons narrowly edged the Eagles to the tune of 16-12 this past Wednesday, April 17.

To the East, Highway 53 rivals UW-Eau Claire and UW-Stout will meet for the first time this season on Saturday as they compete for just the third time in two years.

As the season winds down, the conference is still up for grabs with several teams looking to stamp their ticket to the WIAC tournament on May 3. From there, teams will have their eyes set on the NCAA tournament, where the Midwest schools will get the chance to face off against top programs across the nation.