Making History: The First Team

By Joe Corley
ECUPirates.com

The women's lacrosse program at ECU is no longer a concept or an idea or a promise for the future, it's here. For head coach Amanda Barnes, a return to a sense of normalcy is a great thing.

Barnes was a four-year letterwinner as a goalkeeper at North Carolina, graduating in 2008. She then worked as an assistant at Ohio State, Boston University and Duke. Shortly after the 2016 season ended, she was named the first head coach for the Pirates.

That meant starting the program from scratch, including hiring assistants and getting players. That's what she spent all of last season doing. Now, it's time to get down to business. The team has been on campus since school started last month, and last week started a period in which they can be together and practicing for up to 20 hours per week. The first game will be in the spring.

"The first year here, there was no team, no players," said Barnes, who is assisted by Lexi Cross (defensive coordinator) and Emily Parros (offensive coordinator). "For a coach to not have players to coach is a little unnerving and makes you a little anxious. I'm just really excited to have a team here."

Finally having the players on campus and together means the coaching staff is getting its first chance to see how what they've assembled meshes. So far, so good.

"We're really hopeful," Barnes said. "We're learning our team personality a little everyday, not only individually but as a team collectively, and even in their units. These girls are working really hard and they're holding each other accountable. When we talked with them during the recruiting process we talked about the vision we have for the program, and I think the ladies we have here are really taking ownership of that and running with it and setting the bar higher than we had originally envisioned. That's in the classroom as well as the work they're putting in on the field and off the field."

The recruiting process produced a roster that certainly isn't lacking in youth. Before the recent addition of four walk-ons, there were 23 freshmen and two sophomores listed on the roster. No juniors, no seniors.

Emma Bowman, a sophomore from Frederick, Md., jumped at the chance to return to the East Coast after spending her freshman year playing for Oregon. She wanted to be closer to family, and she wanted to attend "a big football school." When she learned that ECU was starting a program, she jumped at the chance to join.

"I wanted to be closer to home so my family could come see me play more," said Bowman, who has been playing since she was in the second grade. "I missed them coming out to games. That was the main part. It was a great opportunity, but I wanted to be on this side of the country."

Getting to know her new teammates meant getting to know a lot of freshmen. One of them is Megan Pallozzi, who is from Ellicott City, Md., and also has been playing since second grade. Pallozzi, who plans to major in biology with the goal of becoming a veterinarian, relishes the idea of being a trailblazer.

"It's an amazing experience building history and being the first team," she said. "It's definitely something special. We're going to have the first-ever goal, we're going to have the first-ever win. Everything is history, and it's incredible to be part of that experience."

One thing the Pirates have in their favor heading into the season is a rules change in women's lacrosse that will put a bigger premium on speed and endurance. In the past, whenever a whistle was blown for a foul, everyone on the field had to stop. Now, only the players involved in the foul must pause as everyone else keeps moving.

"We were already the fastest sport on two feet, now we're going to become an even faster sport," Barnes said. "The positive for us is that this rule is going into effect for the first time for everyone, not just our team. We're all going to be learning this for the first time and playing this for the first time, so this isn't just something that we as a team of predominantly freshmen and underclassmen are going through, this is something that every team in the country at the Division I level is trying to learn."

Barnes' background is almost exclusively on defense, but as a head coach she places plenty of trust in Cross and Parros. Cross earned All-America honors as a defender for James Madison in 2015, and Parros totaled 72 goals and 46 assists during her playing career at North Carolina, graduating in 2013.

"It's great for me to get to oversee both ends," Barnes said. "I always have the saying that in lacrosse, defense is harder to learn and easier to master, and offense is easier to learn and harder to master. This fall we're really honing in on individual skills both offensively and defensively for the entire team."

The Pirates will play in Johnson Stadium. Games consist of two 30-minute halves, with a 90-second shot clock.

"Fans should expect a lot of energy, a lot of hustle, and hopefully a lot of scoring," Barnes said. "It's a fast-paced game. You think about the ball movement in terms of how ice hockey and basketball are played, but it's on a soccer-size field. I think you could see a score of, you know, 15-12, hopefully in ECU's favor."

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