BY MICHAEL RAWSON
PRIDE STAFF WRITER

Think basketball and volleyball are the only new sports on campus? Think again.
The newest team is Men’s Lacrosse, and even though it’s only a club, it plans to be as competitive as our NAIA-sanctioned sports. Yes, lacrosse is more popular on the east coast, but hey, so are popped collars. Just don’t try telling club President Chase Allvord people in North County don’t care about the sport.
“West coast lacrosse is growing at an incredible rate, and Cal State San Marcos lacrosse will be a strong contributor to the quality of the game at the college level for years to come,” he said in an email.
Men’s Lacrosse joins a diverse group of already established club sports on campus, including soccer and surfing. Yes, there is a soccer team and a soccer club. Club sports borrow elements from both official sports teams and intramural sports. Like intramurals, they are non-sanctioned and student-organized. Like sanctioned sports, they hold tryouts, practice, play games against other schools, and usually even belong to an organized league, which for the lacrosse club is the Southwestern Lacrosse Conference.
Lacrosse became an official club in September, but according to Allvord, “the wheels started turning as far as getting everything together back in April.
Tryouts for the team were held between Sept 14 – 18, and Allvord said they were wildly successful. “We had 22 guys come out. It was great to see the enthusiasm everyone had for lacrosse. We are going to have another week of tryouts following the start of the spring semester.
“There were a lot of guys who did not know about the team in September and want to play, so we’re going to give them the opportunity to play in the spring.”
Other clubs in the conference include large schools, small schools, private schools and public schools.  So far the schedule includes UC San Diego, Marymount College, Occidental College, Concordia University, and Cal State Long Beach.
Some schools from the conference have had club lacrosse for years, but Allvord thinks his squad is ready. “Everyone on the team is ready for the responsibility of representing CSUSM,” he said. “We are committed to playing high-quality lacrosse against high-quality competition.”