Southwestern has a new women’s lacrosse head coach! Coach Hafdell will be the first woman head coach since the program started. Hadfell is coming from Rhodes College in Tennessee, where she was an assistant coach for three years. In those three years as a coach, the Rhodes team won three conference championships, as well as being named No. 1 in regional ranking for the first time in their history. Before Rhodes College, Coach Hafdell coached at St. Joseph’s high school. When Hafdell was a player at Slippery Rock University she played defense, winning Team MVP and all-conference. She is excited for this new opportunity at Southwestern seeing it as a good challenge with a new program and the potential that it has. She is looking forward to the improvement she hopes to see over the next few years. When asked why she chose Southwestern University, she replied that she likes the location, that the sport is thriving and growing in Texas, and not dying. “The location makes for a good recruiting tool,” Hafdell says, “I want the team to be very goal-oriented, with the drive being successful. I see a lot of potential in this program.” This is the third new head coach the program has had in the six years since it began. The previous head coach, Brice Queener, left Southwestern to accept a job coaching at the University of Denver. Along with Coach Queener stepping down, the previous assistant coach also left Southwestern to complete her masters. The new coach, Kaitlyn Hafdell, is currently searching for a new assistant coach for the program. The Lacrosse season starts in February, with most of the games being at home this year, but fall ball, the four weeks of practice in fall, starts in late September. Along with the Team having a new coach, they also have five new players, two new goalies, and three field players.