Under the leadership of new Head Coach MacEllen McDonough, the California Lutheran University Regals lacrosse team plans to kick-start its season with a fresh outlook, looking to build upon the team’s foundation through leadership, unity, and skill development by efficient practices and new challenges.
“We all have a shared vision and we’re doing what we can to get to it,” senior co-captain Meghan Angus said.
Junior goalkeeper Bella Bravo said the unity of the team has grown and will continue to improve throughout the season.
“We can only do so much together on the field that can get us so far so we have to do stuff off the field,” Bravo said. “We’ll do stuff like movie nights or like, you know just other small things to you know make it so we can talk about other things going on in our lives and actually get to know each other as people besides just as athletes.”
The team had been practicing leading up to their season debut against the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Athenas on Wednesday, Feb. 12 in Claremont, California, where the team lost 20-6.
Despite losing to the Athenas on Wednesday, the team saw improvement against CMS from its previous season.
“I think we have made a lot of progress in the past few weeks. Now, it’s just about, like, putting it all out on the field in real time when there’s, you know, game nerves and I guess just, like, the excitement of, like, a real first game,” McDonough said.
McDonough said the team practices five to six days a week for two hours each day.
“I like to just, like, go hard and then get out, and, like, keep it short and sweet. I feel like the girls respond really well to that, like, high-paced environment,” McDonough said.
Bravo said that the hard work the team has been putting in going into the season has helped the players with their skill development, and will continue to do so moving forward.
“I think when we’re in a high-paced environment we don’t have time to, like, think about, you know, if we did make a mistake, like, it’s kind of just like, ‘keep going,’ like, ‘what’s next?’ type mentality. I think it’s always having to look, you know, one or two steps ahead of what’s currently happening,” Bravo said. “If we do make a mistake it forces us to move on and focus on the next thing.”
McDonough was hired as the team’s head coach prior to the 2025 season, having played at the Division I level at Jacksonville University. McDonough said she then went on to play internationally for four years.
“She is very committed to getting us into the position that we need to be in to be a competitive force with these other teams, and honestly it’s been very exciting and motivating at the same time because she’s pushing us where she can and we’re getting it done and we see her vision too,” Angus said.
According to the Women’s Lacrosse Season Preview, a CLU Sports article written by Liam Flenniken, Cal Lutheran will be the second National Collegiate Athletics Association McDonough has coached at, as she was previously an assistant lacrosse coach at CMS.
“It feels good to, like, give back to the college age group. That’s kind of, like, my favorite age group to work with. I think everybody on the team wants to be here and is here for the right reasons,” McDonough said.
With McDonough and three new players, including sophomore Ellie Martinez and first-years Shea Simpson and Nicki-Jean Henderson, the Regals lacrosse team is welcoming in new leadership and players.
“I think we do have a fresh outlook. I think last season was very pivotal for us because we were able to get our first few, like, wins in program history,” Bravo said. “And now that we’ve seen that we can do that, we’re gonna be using the tools that our new coach has been giving us, and like I said, continue pushing.”
McDonough said she hopes to bring knowledge and experience to the team that the players can then put into their own game.
“Primary goal is just to get better, to be more skilled, to be more confident, to set ourselves up for success on the field and off the field,” McDonough said.
Angus said that she is excited about the team’s development and looking forward to making new mistakes as a team, as she believes they are an opportunity to grow.
“In past seasons we would kind of focus on the same recurring issues and try to see how we could improve, but we never really got anywhere with it and we didn’t see much improvement. But now we’re having new problems, which is nice, instead of having to deal with the same old ones,” Angus said.
Despite a halt to their preparations for the 2025 season due to a lack of a head coach, the Regals will return home for their next game on Wednesday, Feb. 19 at 7 p.m., looking for their first win of the season against the Whittier College Poets. In the 2024 season, the Regals beat the Poets twice, securing their first-ever team win. The Regals have yet to win a game at their home field of William Rolland Stadium, according to CLU Sports.
“That’s the most exciting part, is that we really want it this year, so no matter how good these teams are, you can only want it so much, and we want it bad,” Angus said.
