By Brittany Burke
The wind whipped around Arute field, and for the first time in weeks it wasn’t the football team occupying the turf on a Saturday morning, it was the CCSU men’s lacrosse club.
In the first ever Fall Classic Jamboree, the men’s club team brought together seven teams, including CCSU, to play an entire day of the sport the athletes love.
It included teams from New Paltz University, Quinnipiac, CCSU, Southern Connecticut, the University of Massachusetts and the University of Rhode Island.
“Well, we had four games so far this fall, this here is the Fall Classic Jamboree,” said Conrad Meurice. “The biggest point of this tournament, for me, was to get teams that we’ve never played before to play each other, such as UMass, New Paltz and Connecticut College. We’ve never played them in the history of Central lacrosse and some of the teams here have never played them, so I really just wanted to bring a whole different variety of teams together and get them to play together and get the experience in.”
Games began at 9 a.m. and were played throughout the day until 7 p.m. Each game lasted just one hour, but each school was able to play a minimum of four games in the single tournament.
Not only was the all-day event for the teams to congregate in one area, but it was also for the team to get its name out there to the rest of the CCSU campus.
“[This jamboree is] to get our team recognized as more of a legitimate team. Previous years they definitely weren’t as legit,” said Meurice. “We also wanted to make ourselves known around Central because not too many people know that we have a men’s lacrosse team and we are a good team so I want people to recognize that.”
The day expanded beyond a straightforward tournament. The team was there also selling t-shirts to raise money, had Herb’s Sports Shop from West Hartford there selling their own merchandise and got the CCSU Dance Team involved by performing during the break.
The turnout by CCSU students was minimal, but the tournament did help the team figure out what they needed to work on going into future games.
The team went 2-2 in the fall, defeating two Southern Connecticut teams, while falling to UConn’s club team.
“One team that we played was a bunch of retired pro players and retired [division-I] players, and we lost to them which was understandable, and we also lost to UConn, which is understandable,” said Meurice. “They’re really good, but we did beat Southern and we beat another men’s league out of Southern Connecticut.”
Saturday’s event was the first for the team, but Meurice hopes to make it an annual event, having it grow more with each season.