By Brittany Ochtinsky

Oakland University captured the Women’s Collegiate Lacrosse League’s Division B championship and made it to the semifinal in the league championship, the Golden Grizzlies hope to continue improvement in their second season of the newly revamped women’s lacrosse club.

While the club has been around for seven years now, it took a year’s hiatus to resolve some issues, returning in full swing for the 2006-2007 season.

Last season, the team brought on Towbey Kassa, an Oakland University alum who helped form the men’s team in 2000, to coach their squad. He captained the team all four years he played and his younger brother Matthew currently holds the same position on the men’s lacrosse team. 

“Our president last year brought in Towbey Kassa, who is absolutely fabulous and he’s helped out the program a ton,” women’s team president and sophomore co-captain Caroline Brandon said. “He’s really brought us up to a new level.”

After graduating, Kassa spent the next three years as an assistant coach for the men’s team. He has also coached both boy’s and girl’s lacrosse at Troy High School.

“The level of organization is 10 times better than when I started coaching,” Kassa said. “Players used to just show up to practice and take cars to games. Now, it’s pretty amazing. We take buses to games and a lot of our players coach high school teams, which helps in the recruiting process.”

The Grizzlies finished last weekend a perfect 4-0 and are currently 5-1 overall, dropping only the first game of the season to the University of Michigan.

The ultimate goal of the team is to win the division for a second consecutive season and be one of the 16 teams to compete in the league championship, held April 19 in Toledo, Ohio.

Despite the success from last season, the Grizzlies are dealing with a huge player turnover from last season to this season, with only six players returning from last year’s squad, the team had to bring in a whole new batch of talent — 13 total newcomers — including some who had never played lacrosse before.

“We have some girls who just picked up the stick for the first time and they’re actually a big factor in our rotation. Some are even starting right now,” Brandon said. “It’s hard to pick up on at first, but they’re working really hard and we have a lot of natural athletes.”

And as easy as it is to join the team, it doesn’t come cheap. The cost of the practice facility alone runs the team $10,000. In addition to the standard amount allotted by the university for clubs and the $5,000 Noonan Pontiac-GMC donates (Mike Noonan, the owner of the dealership has a daughter on the team, Haley, who is the team’s other co-captain), each player still has to fork over $1,500 a year.

The dues help cover the cost of transportation and buy the team practice time at the All-American Lacrosse dome. The team practices there Tuesday through Thursday and the girls also hold an additional session Monday nights in the Recreation Center, where they condition, practice formations and go over game film, since no sticks are permitted in the Rec.

Home games are played at Notre Dame Prep on Giddings Road in Pontiac and sometimes coincide with the men’s games.

Next season, Kassa hopes the program will move up to the WCLL’s Division A, since the team currently plays games against Division A schools. The Grizzlies are still on probation after rejoining the league two years ago and are ineligible to participate in the national tournament.