CENTRAL — The Board of Trustees of Southern Wesleyan University has approved the addition of women’s lacrosse as an intercollegiate sport for the 2016-17 school year.
“I am excited to announce that our Board of Trustees has approved the addition of our 18th varsity sport at SWU,” said Chris Williams, athletic director at SWU. “A big thank you to President Voss and his cabinet, and to the members of my staff who have worked to gather data, write the pro-forma and to pitch the proposal.”
This will bring the total number of intercollegiate teams on campus to 18. The Warriors will become the 11th full member of Conference Carolinas to sponsor women’s lacrosse and will begin competing against those ten schools and associate member Chowan in the spring of 2018.
“Dr. Voss has asked athletics to continue to add to the enrollment growth Southern Wesleyan has seen over the past three to four years,” added Williams. “Over the past few years we have gone from 11 sports to 18 today. This sport will add 20 or more female student-athletes to our department and give us 10 varsity female sports as well.”
There are 100 NCAA Division II institutions that sponsor women’s lacrosse, including six in the state of South Carolina. Nine NCAA Division II schools will be adding the sport over the next three years.
“This additional sport falls into our overall strategic plan of enrollment growth of the university, enhances our NCAA membership transition, further supports and strengthens our commitment to Conference Carolinas, gives further opportunities to connect with our local communities and gives Southern Wesleyan another platform to share the story of Jesus Christ,” added Williams.
A national search will being immediately to hire a coaching staff that will spend the 2016-17 school year recruiting student-athletes before their first full year of competition in the 2017-18 school year.