By Megan Broderick

In the game of lacrosse, players are constantly charging toward a goal, stick in hand, hoping to score that one crucial point to put their team in the lead. For the UK men’s lacrosse team, reaching its goal this season is as tough as scoring in a competitive match.

The team’s goal? Legitimacy.

The team is vying for NCAA accreditation — the chance to become a Division I men’s sport program at UK.

Accreditation brings major benefits, one of which is funding from UK. Men’s lacrosse head coach Jacob Knight, who is also the advertising adviser for the Kernel, said becoming a Division I program would help the team develop, giving players the chance to concentrate on the sport, not money.

“If the university offered scholarships or fully funded the program, then guys wouldn’t have to have jobs to pay to play, and those issues might not be as big of a deal,” Knight said.

The team has already posted some impressive accomplishments at the club level, making it to the playoffs the past three years, advancing as far as the quarterfinals, and recently joining the SELC (SouthEastern Lacrosse Conference). This allows the team to play a sharp upgrade in competition, including Georgia, Vanderbilt and Tennessee.

The major hurdle for the lacrosse program is Title IX, a fair-education law enacted in 1972 that has been extended to prevent discrimination based on gender within college athletics. UK already uses a majority of their scholarships on men’s sports, making the leap up harder for the lacrosse team.

The men’s lacrosse team currently has a budget between $40,000 and $50,000, and Knight said that UK only provides $300 for the club, or less than 1 percent of their budget.

“It’s difficult … but we make our way by fundraising,” said club president Andrew McCarthy. “What we don’t make by fundraising is supplemented by player dues.”

The team thinks new marketing strategies will produce a larger fan base and help increase the popularity of the game, giving them an edge on other club sports when scholarships become available. McCarthy said the club has “decent” attendance, but hopes tougher competition will help increase crowds at games.

“We’ve put fliers out there to try and get fans in the crowd,” Knight said. “We’ve run ads in the paper, too, but I think the best way to get people out to our games is just to make sure they know that we’re playing tougher competition that includes SEC schools that everyone around here is familiar with.”

In the spring, the team will play home games against Purdue, Vanderbilt and West Virginia and will finish the season against Louisville on April 18.

“There are nine away games this season. Sometimes we take big 15-passenger vans and sometimes we charter a bus from Centenary Methodist Church, just depending on how far the trip is,” Knight said. “If the game is close enough, say if it’s in Nashville, we’ll make a day trip out of it but for our longer trips, we’ll stay overnight and that comes out of our budget.”

Despite its budget and roster problems, the club has not let its morale fall heading into its spring season.

“This year is a big step forward for this program and we’re excited to see what we can do,” McCarthy said.