While Training, Lacrosse Dedicates Every Yard for Yeards

Over the winter break, the James Madison women's lacrosse team participated in the Every Yard for Yeards program to help spread awareness about relationship violence and celebrate the life of Yeardley Love while providing motivation for winter workouts.

Love, a lacrosse player at the University of Virginia, lost her life due to relationship violence, and the lacrosse community has honored her nationwide. This spring will mark the five-year anniversary of her death.

The Yards for Yeards program, created by the Boston College women's lacrosse team following a presentation from Yeardley's mother, has been a way for teams to show support for the One Love Foundation, which aims to "prevent future tragedies by raising awareness about the warning signs of relationship violence."

As a team, JMU's goal as part of the program was to run one million yards over the course of a one-month training period. Each team member was responsible for running 1,232 yards per day, the equivalent of less than one mile. In four weeks, the lacrosse team finished with a total of 1,367,978 yards, with senior defender Lexi Cross leading the squad with 89,631 yards.

"I am so proud of my team for the way they embraced this challenge," stated Head Coach Shelley Klaes-Bawcombe. "They really understand the importance of using opportunities like this to heighten their awareness of what it takes to be a confident woman in today's world, all while showing their commitment to being the hardest-working team in college lacrosse in 2015. Not only did we crush the goal of one million yards in a month, we did it in only three weeks and two days and went over the goal by 300,000 yards. Hard work pays off. What a great start for our season."

When speaking about her experiences of the program, senior midfielder Alison Curwin stated, "Yards for Yeardley gave me a purpose to run my workouts harder than ever this winter break and get as many extra yards as I could."

Carter Reifsnider, a junior defender who contributed the second most yards with 85,413 added, "Yards for Yeardley inspired me to run for something bigger than myself or my team. I was running for a bigger purpose and that is really powerful. I ran even more yards than usual because it was easy to get up and go run when you are running for such a good cause."

The 2015 JMU lacrosse season begins on February 1 with a 1 p.m. contest at North Carolina.

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