Linfield discontinues womens lacrosse as result of dwindling roster

Linfield University’s women’s lacrosse program is no more as of July 16, with the college deciding to discontinue the sport following a review of participation and recruiting for the upcoming season.

The team had just 12 players during the 2026 season, which is the minimum required to field a team. Six graduated in the spring.

In seasons prior, Linfield lacrosse saw drops in its roster size, with 17 in 2022, 16 in 23-24 and 15 in 2025.

“We’ve seen a trend in recent years where we’ve had less numbers. We’ve had declining interest in terms of turnout, and we landed at a place where it became apparent that it was impossible for us to field a team this next spring,” Linfield Athletic Director Scott Brosius told the News-Register.

Sarah Dalsey was hired in 2023 and remained as the Wildcats’ head coach through 2025 with the hopes of drawing interest from the East Coast, where youth lacrosse programs are more prevalent.

Dalsey spent three years as an assistant women’s lacrosse coach at McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland, and two years assisting at Adrian College in Adrian, Michigan.

In addition, Dalsey was head coach of the Nike Girls Lacrosse Camp at McDaniel College and Pace University, and led club travel teams in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.

Monica Porter, who spent two and a half years as the director of lacrosse in Portland at Lacrosse Northwest and, prior to, coached at Colorado State University-Pueblo for eight seasons, was hired in 2026.

Porter’s local connections hoped to draw more regional interest, but Linfield was ultimately unable to find the players.

“We really hoped that we would find that connection to improve recruiting numbers, and we just saw that wasn’t the case,” Brosius said.

Brosius cited the challenges of recruiting talent from across the country, including costs and convincing athletes to move hundreds of miles from home. Lacrosse is also not a sanctioned sport through the Oregon School Activities Association, meaning there are no high schools in the state that offer the sport for student-athletes.

Those who want to play lacrosse in Oregon do so through local clubs or Oregon Youth Lacrosse.

Eastern Oregon University and Whittier College in California also discontinued their women’s lacrosse programs this year because of low numbers.

Cal Lutheran University canceled its program in April but announced it would reinstate the sport on July 7 in response to advocacy from the lacrosse student-athletes, university leadership and community stakeholders.

Brosius, entering his third year as Linfield University Vice President and Director of Athletics, called the decision “gut-wrenching” but wanted to announce it before the start of the new scholastic year so current players could make the necessary choices now and not feel like it’s too late in the process to do so.

In its statement on the cancellation, Linfield Athletics said, “The university is committed to supporting current women’s lacrosse student-athletes throughout this transition and will work with each student to discuss their academic and athletic options.”

Though it is difficult to lose the program, Brosius wanted to ensure a situation where Linfield was able to produce a championship-quality college athletics experience. Having a limited roster and a scenario where one injury would mean forfeit was not conducive to such an environment.

According to Brosius, the decision on how any future budget savings and resources that would have gone to lacrosse will be used is yet to be determined by the university.

Because Linfield provided evidence of a lack of turnout and declining interest in the sport on campus, there were no current inequalities found regarding Title IX compliance.

All universities that cancel an athletic program are required under Title IX to show immediate proof of compliance through one of three criteria: participation proportionate to each gender’s enrollment, demonstrations of equal program expansions for men and women or by displaying current efforts to fully effectively accommodate programs of the underrepresented sex.

The Wildcats’ lacrosse program began in 1997 under Head Coach Steve Simmons, who went 41-24-3 overall over four seasons. In the first 11 years of existence, the Wildcats had nine winning seasons with Simmons and Bill Hander (2001-07) at the helm.

After 2007, the team did not have another year above .500 until 2019, the first season in the tenure of Lindsay Kibler. Linfield went 11-5 overall and 10-2 in the Northwest Conference but finished runner-up to George Fox University for the conference crown.

Dalsey guided Linfield to the program’s first-ever berth in the Northwest Conference Tournament in 2025, where they lost in the first round to George Fox.

Under Porter in 2026, the Wildcats went 5-11 overall and 3-5 in conference play, ending the season on a five-game slide.

One of the squad’s seniors, Gabby Crist from Lake Oswego, completed the season by becoming first all-time in points (260), goals (195), shots attempted (392), shots on goal (323), free-position goals (40) and games started (58).