Texas v. Southwestern
6pm, Tuesday, Feb. 9*
Whittaker Intramural Fields, 51st & Guadalupe
(*Time and date subject to change)

Following recent tradition, the Texas lacrosse team will start off its spring schedule with a scrimmage against Southwestern University on Tuesday, a seasonal ritual that has benefitted both squads in the last few years. The only difference this time is that the Longhorns will be playing against an NCAA squad instead of the class of the LSA DII.

That’s because this year the Pirates moved up to the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Division III, becoming the first NCAA squad in the state of Texas and one of the few west of the Mississippi.

The Horns condition for their first game of the season.

Texas head coach Noah Fink sees this as an opportunity to play some tough competition as well as prepare for the forthcoming MCLA season.

“We have been playing Southwestern now for five years in the pre-season and as they continue to use their NCAA profile to recruit nationally we are excited to play a strong opponent in the pre-season,” Fink said. “Coach Ernst is a fine coach who will have his team ready to play. We are looking forward to getting our guys up and down against another jersey color and I am sure the scrimmage will be productive for each of us.”

Despite recent setbacks due to weather, Texas has been as productive as usual, trading last Wednesday’s practice for a high intensity workout at Anytime Fitness. The team progressed through stations of varying difficulty, including kettlebell swings, medicine ball tosses, box jumps and agility work with speed ladders.

Texas lost last Thursday’s practice to more heavy rain, but on Friday, as the sun peaked out, the Horns took to Clark Field for an hour of wind sprints and body weight exercises.

Now, it’s again the weather that will decide when No. 18 Texas suits up against Southwestern. Coaches are planning on playing the game Tuesday evening, although the time and date are still tentative depending on the forecast.

Either way, players and coaches alike are getting ready to start the season and finally see the product of all of their hard work in practice.

“I think that this will be a great measuring stick for the new guys and returning players alike,” Fink said. “We will get to see how the team responds when it’s game time.”

Due to poor weather, the Southwestern scrimmage has been postponed until next Tuesday at 6:00 pm.

As many UT co-eds slept in and enjoyed their Monday off on the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday last week, the Texas lacrosse team took to the field and kicked off the spring season with five straight days of practice.

Starting with strength and endurance tests on Monday morning at Clark Field, the prospective future home of Texas lacrosse, and continuing into that evening with a two-hour long practice at Whittaker Fields, the squad got off to a good start.

“We were slow Monday morning and I was worried about the team’s fitness,” said head coach Noah Fink. “But on Monday afternoon the guys showed me they liked to compete and they really hustled in all of our drills.”

Monday’s practice set a precedent for the week: stick work early followed by positional work and then full-field, full-speed drills.

The Texas coaches also revealed their focus for the week— moving the rock quickly after picking up ground balls.

“Sometimes our ball movement wasn’t the best last season,” Fink said. “But we have a very talented squad this year and if we improve the little things we will be very hard to beat.”

Even though it is still very early in the season, by Thursday the team was working on fast-break drills— a sign of their skill and work ethic, Fink said.

And by Friday, as veteran midfielder William Lawson brought out the team’s speaker system to get some tuneskis going, the Longhorns were getting up and down the field in an intersquad scrimmage.

Fink saw some of the intensity drop off during Friday’s scrimmage, but that is to be expected, he said, after five grueling days of hard work. Most of all, coaches noted that they were happy with the team’s attitude.

“As a coach it is truly refreshing to see so many young players stepping up their game as well as returning players beginning to emerge as true leaders,” assistant coach Dennis Rugg said. “I’m looking forward to another solid week of practice coming up.”

The Texas lacrosse team is now in its second week of practice as it prepares for its first scrimmage of the season on Feb. 5 against NCAA Division III opponent Southwestern.

“We have the talent, the work ethic and the vision to do something special this year,” Fink said.

Beautiful winter weather on Saturday took a turn for the worse on Sunday, the second day of the annual Longhorn Shootout, but the teams in attendance were able to finish most of their games and in the end a few emerged as tournament champions.

In an exciting game, the Vegas Starz defeated local power Westwood in the championship round of the high school varsity bracket.

Plano won the high school junior varsity division as well as a share of the first middle school bracket along with the T-Rex team. South Austin won the second middle school bracket while the Dallas Mustangs reigned supreme in the 5th & 6th Grade Division.

Kyle Harrison, a midfielder for the MLL's Denver Outlaws, stopped by to help out at the STX tent during the tournament.

The men's post-collegiate division also saw an action-packed finale and, after some early-morning delays, Adrenaline Austin finished first in that bracket.

Tournament Director Scott Marmillion, a returning defenseman on the Texas lacrosse team, extended his heartfelt congratulations to all of the winners in what was one of the most exciting tournaments in recent memory.

"We'd like to thank all of the teams who came out and helped to make this year's Longhorn Shootout a success," Marmillion said. "Even though we were unable to finish the day out on Sunday, we think everyone had a great opportunity to match up against teams that they don't usually get to play."

The entire Longhorn lacrosse program would also like to extend a special thanks to the following people:

Patrick Flynn, Flynn Construction
Chris Mele, Eco Systems Landscape Services
Jay Jackson, Westlake Lacrosse
Andy Garrigan, WAYA
Gene Brown, Southwest Lacrosse Officials Association
Chad McKenzie, UT RecSports

And to our sponsors:

STX Lacrosse
South Swell Sports

We look forward to seeing everyone next year at what has become the marquee Central Texas fall-ball tournament.