Just a year ago, the SIU club lacrosse team was searching for players to participate, teams to play and had old, worn out pennies for team jerseys.

Now the club fields an impressive 26 players, joined one of the most competitive club lacrosse leagues in the region, the Great Lakes Lacrosse League, and has new Harrow brand equipment and jerseys.

“It’s kind of interesting when compared to last year because we had about four games and most teams didn’t even want to play us because were unknown and unheard of,” Vice President Steven Ta said. Ta, a sophomore from Algonquin studying accounting, was the president last year but stepped down because of time constraints.

Even in his slightly diminished role, Ta has still been active in the operations of the club.

“It seems like every week I’m getting an email like ‘play us here, play us there, can we come to you guys,” Ta said. “We actually don’t have enough time to put every team on the schedule, so we’re currently scheduling for next year.”

Ta said, the men’s club lacrosse team has been on campus since 2007, but took a couple years off because of a lack in enrollment. Assistant Director of Sports Clubs and Intramurals, Shane Bennett, praised Ta and new lacrosse President Alex Moten, a senior from Glencoe studying kinesiology.

“I remember four years ago when lacrosse came back on campus,” Bennett said. “They now have an overwhelming number of participants, they have great equipment and they even have women excited to play women’s lacrosse. Steven and Alex have done a great job.”

Ta also pointed to Moten, and his play as a Division III athlete in soccer, as a big reason why the improvement has taken place.

“I have been here the longest but Alex definitely put a new tone into the program since he’s older and knows more,” Ta said. “He’s a good athlete and actually went to a D-III soccer program. He knows a lot about coaching and has jumped in and gotten really involved with our lacrosse program.”

Moten said he was excited to join the GLLL because now the team will play against tougher, more established opponents such as Eastern Illinois University, Western Illinois University and Washington University in St. Louis.

“It’s a great league,” Moten said. “It’s got a mix of schools, some Big 10 schools, some smaller private schools.”

Moten also invited a lot of younger players to come join, even if they are inexperienced, to keep membership going for the next couple of years.

“We got a lot of young members but it’s kind of nice being that we won’t all graduate and people who will graduate aren’t leaving,” he said.

Moten plans to pursue graduate school right after graduating in May, making him eligible to participate in future seasons.

Moten said one of his favorite parts of being on the team is getting a chance to mentor his younger teammates. Moten, 28, has served two years of active duty in the military and is still a member of the National Guard.

“It’s a younger team so working with younger 18, 19-year-old guys has been good,” he said. “Trying to be part teammate, part kind of mentor, helping them through college is probably the biggest challenge and benefit.”

Dalton Quinlan, a freshman from Mount Zion studying finance, is one of the many underclassmen on the team. He said he had never played lacrosse before the fall semester, but his teammates have been patient with him through the learning process. He has improved well enough to become one of the team’s starters.

“I’ve heard about the sport but it was never in my area, so once I had the opportunity to play, I took it,” he said. “When you start a sport, I feel like you want to get good at it. So that’s my goal and that’s what makes it fun, trying to get better.”

Ta said Quinlan’s early success in the sport has come from his physicality and that he is a quick learner. Ta also encourages other freshmen and sophomores to come out and give the sport a try. He said the team is working on hosting an intramural event for those who are not sure about joining or may not know all the rules.

“We are 26 strong and still adding new players to the team,” he said. “We’re thinking about hosting an intramural league for brand new students with no experience.”

Moten also talked about the possible addition of new players. He said the club’s goal is to become competitive on the field and to become a mainstay on campus.

“The toughest thing is that some of the teams we play, for example U of I, they have a (large) budget and like 80 guys on their roster, so there’s definitely a catch up period,” Moten said. “We just want to be competitive our first year in the league and kind of build off of that for future years.”

Moten said the experience of players range from students like Quinlan, who did not know any rules of the sport, to lifelong players and state champions.

Moten was a two-time lacrosse state champion in one of the hardest divisions in the state at Loyola Academy High School in Wilmette. Ta had a successful high school career capturing two state championships while playing club lacrosse at Jacobs High School. He also led his conference in face off win percentage his senior year.

The two plan to try out for the upcoming World Lacrosse Championship. The WLC, or World Games, is an international lacrosse tournament which occurs every four years, and this year it takes place in Denver in July. Ta hopes to compete for Team China while Moten said he has already received an invitation to join Team Colombia as a clinician teaching the sport and as a competitor in the upcoming games.

The two would not be the only former Saluki club lacrosse players to make the jump to play tougher competition. Former president of the club lacrosse Ryan Kunzi, accepted an offer to play Division III lacrosse at Illinois Wesleyan University, along with fellow former Saluki, Miles Ebell.

The lacrosse team is set to kick off their season with a scrimmage against University of Illinois Feb. 22 and has 15 games on the schedule for the season, not including playoffs.

Tyler Davis can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @tdavis_de, or at 563-3311ext. 269.