A whistle blows, and immediately, the yelling begins. Players run for the ball as other teammates shout commands and support. One player drops the ball and laughs, apologizing before picking it up with her lacrosse stick and continuing on with the scrimmage.

By just watching, one would never realize that Linfield’s women’s lacrosse team struggled for numbers this season. And its not the only team, either.

Linfield’s women’s golf team also struggled for players this season, and is barely scrapping by with a team of four, although it is technically a full team.

“We have enough to fill a team, but for the most part, we could use a couple more girls,” said Samantha Smith, the head coach of the women’s lacrosse team and Linfield alum.

Currently, women’s lacrosse has 14 players, but is hoping to get up to at least 16 or 17 to have more subs available. Women’s golf is hoping to get up to about six or seven players next season.

The low numbers this year for both women’s golf and women’s lacrosse could be because of both the head coaches being new this year and not having enough time to recruit new members.

“It was tough for the women’s [golf] team because it had a coach step in partway through the season,” said Brynn Hurdus, the head coach of women’s golf and also Linfield alum.

Halfway through last season, the old women’s golf coach had to leave after saying he was too busy with work.

Another coach stepped in who had no previous experience coaching women’s golf, and Hurdus was hired in the summer. But it was too late, Hurdus said, and she couldn’t do any recruiting for this year’s team.

“I’ve talked to a lot of recruits, and it looks like we’ll have numbers back up for next year,” Hurdus said.

Smith has also been recruiting women through emailing previous players and other women on the team asking their friends to come out and play. So far, they were able to get three new players.

“It’s a huge relief,” Smith said. “Being a first-year coach, you don’t want to have to forfeit every game because you don’t have enough girls coming out.”

Samantha Sigler/ News editor

Samantha Sigler can be reached at [email protected].