Kentucky men’s lacrosse club will be turning it up a notch this upcoming season with a move to Division-I play, it announced on Sept. 30 via Instagram.
After over 30 years as a club and plenty of bouncing around to different leagues, head coach and former Wildcats player Taylor McCoun described the opportunity as, “a pinch me moment.”
The Cats, who were previously a part of the National College Lacrosse League (NCLL) Division-II, will be moving to the Men’s College Lacrosse Association (MCLA) to play in the Atlantic Lacrosse Conference (ALC).
This decision to toughen the competition came from the influence and hard work of the executive board, which is made up of nine players that do the team’s heavy lifting.
Co-presidents of the board Bryce Moad and Henry Kour, as well as vice president Kaden Wilson and sergeant of arms Mikey Ancona, worked diligently to get the move done after their exit in the NCLL Tournament last season.
“Bryce, Henry, Mikey, a lot of these guys have done a lot of behind the scenes work, you know, to make this jump for us,” McCoun said.
Moad, the starting goalkeeper, had similar praise for their revamped coaching staff that features a new recruitment director, Wyatt Knight.
“This year, we were fortunate enough to hire some of the best coaches, I’d argue, in the entire MCLA,” Moad said.
Knight is a former college lacrosse player who won the 2011 National Championship for Virginia under famed former head coach Dom Starsia at the NCAA Division-I level.
“With these upgrades in coaches, and also keeping coach Taylor on staff, we were able to use new practice plans, involvement of outside coaching and also just advancement within every athlete to work more specifically on skill development,” Moad said.
Despite the excitement throughout the program, the team did lose a few players due to commitment issues and disagreements regarding their promotion.
As a result, the team will be practicing twice as often as before and players are expected to increase their intensity in conditioning and weightlifting.
Alongside Kentucky in moving to the MCLA are Syracuse, High Point and North Carolina, with the latter two set to become new in-conference opponents in the ALC.
“(Our ultimate goal this season is) winning the MCLA championship year one, so we got to have that goal in the back of our mind,” Moad emphasized.
The Wildcats ended their 2024 season 6-7, but went 1-1 versus MCLA teams, defeating Indiana 9-8 in their first game of the season.
Their first official games of the 2025 season are slated to begin after winter break and will take place on Feb. 9, 2025, against Indiana, Purdue and in-state rival Louisville.
