Lacrosse is a rare sport in the South. Few schools in the region have well-established lacrosse programs.”It’s very, very new in the southern region of the United States,” said Hillary Swallen, accounting senior. “I want to say most of the schools have been playing for less than five years in the [Southeastern Conference].”Swallen and Amy Spaziani, oceanography graduate student, started a women’s lacrosse club at the University last year after playing in high school.”Hillary and I and a couple of other girls decided we wanted to keep playing down here,” Spaziani said. “We started the team about a year and a half ago.”Like most of the girls on the team, Swallen and Spaziani aren’t from Louisiana. Swallen is from Canton, Ohio, and Spaziani is from Horseheads, N.Y.The girls met through a Facebook group campaigning for women’s lacrosse at the University.”Somebody started a Facebook [group] that said ‘We want LSU women’s lacrosse,'” said Stephanie Scheuermann, mass communication senior from Houston. “A whole group of us just got together and started it.”The team, in its second year of existence, is now an official club at the University.”Last fall we became a student organization,” Swallen said. “In the spring we became an official sport club. It’s our first year playing actual games this year.”An official sport club is a group sanctioned by University Student Recreation Complex to host other teams on campus.”As a trial club, it was just sort of like a provisionary status to see if there was enough interest and if it would be something useful for LSU,” Spaziani said. “With being an actual club, it means we don’t have to worry about getting our club status revoked.”The club is actively recruiting members to field an 11-person squad, spreading the message through on-campus fliers and chalk messages in the quad.”We’ll teach anybody how to play,” Swallen said. “If you’re mildly athletic, you can be good at this sport.”Some of the girls in the club never played lacrosse until joining.Colleen Gaffney, psychology senior, said she saw a flier in a bathroom on campus about the team.”I went to the bathroom during class, and as I was walking out the door there was this flier on the back of the door,” Gaffney said.Gaffney, the only Louisiana native in the club, said she was looking for a new sport after competing in soccer, tennis and track and field in high school.”I was really excited when I saw the flier,” Gaffney said. “I wanted to do something new, and I had already done everything else.”The University has had a men’s lacrosse club since 1973. The men’s team has 34 members, according to its Web site.The biggest difference between women’s and men’s lacrosse is the style of play — women’s    lacrosse is not a contact sport, and checking is illegal.”There’s no body-to-body contact at all,” Swallen said.The team’s official season begins in the spring, but they will practice for eight weeks in the fall beginning this week.”We should have at least two or three home games this spring,” Swallen said. “I’m not sure if we’ll have any games this fall.”The club has only played a few scrimmages but wants to eventually join the Southeastern Women’s Lacrosse League, a league that includes SEC schools like Georgia, Florida, Auburn, Tennessee and Vanderbilt.Swallen said she has 31 women on her e-mail list this fall.—-Contact Robert Stewart at [email protected]