Last spring, Suffolk University’s women’s lacrosse team played its inaugural season and became the third additional team to the women’s athletic program since 2016.
Women’s sports on all levels are growing now more than ever. Between Women’s National Basketball Association expansion teams and the latest Professional Women’s Hockey League coverage, women’s sports as a whole are projected to have a global revenue of roughly $2.5 billion, a 25% increase since 2024.
This growth highlights professional athletes, but also impacts women’s sports on all levels, including the collegiate level.
For Suffolk in particular, Boston has led a great example for that growth as it introduces a professional women’s baseball team and soccer team in 2026, on top of the existing PWHL franchise in Lowell and the Boston Guard’s first season in 2025 in the Women’s Lacrosse League.
Though Title IX regulations require equal opportunities for both male and female athletes and proportional funding through programs and individual scholarships, it does not require a sport to be represented by a male and female team.
“Over the years the landscape at Suffolk has changed in terms of our population, so with our growing number of female students, we had to add some more women’s sports,” said Carolynn Keal, the women’s lacrosse head coach. “We’ve had women’s ice hockey be added, women’s golf and then women’s lacrosse was the final add given how many fall sports we already had. I think that’s why they went with women’s lacrosse, just because we had more flexibility to add another sport in the spring.”
With the East Boston fields being an existing resource for Suffolk, lacrosse was a practical addition as an athletics program.
With the addition, Suffolk women’s athletes sit at 137 to the men’s 149. The only rosters not included in this count are the indoor and outdoor track teams, which have not been updated on Suffolk’s website. For the 2024-2025 season, the women’s team consisted of 49 athletes for the indoor competitions and 47 athletes for the outdoor, and the men’s team had 31 athletes for both the indoor and outdoor track teams.
Creating the foundation for a new program was enticing for both the players and the staff as they got to start a culture from scratch instead of adapting to a team’s traditions.
“Administratively, Suffolk has been really supportive of athletics and our growing women’s programs, so that was a big reason why I was drawn to apply for this position,” said Keal. “To have the opportunity to build a program from the ground up with such a supportive administration and athletic department was a really easy decision for me.”
Lauren Woods, a sophomore midfielder and lacrosse team captain, shared her excitement about participating in the program’s first season.
“It’s a big honor to start a program and be the first team, especially since we don’t have a men’s [lacrosse] team,” said Woods. “We’re like our own sport kind of, we have nothing to work off of and nothing to build off of. We kind of have to set the tone ourselves and work our way up. We want the program to keep growing, obviously, and get better and better each year.”
Being a captain as a freshman is a very rare scenario, but it puts Woods in a crucial role for such a young team.
“Coming into a program with 11 freshmen, we had a really young team, so we didn’t have a lot to fall back on. So we had to create the culture ourselves. I think that it’s not easy, but we definitely all grew together, and it was a big challenge,” said Woods.
Culture and support are two big factors in any team program. Getting the proportionate support from coaches, teammates, administration and faculty across all sports is what leads to successful student athletes.
“Our coaches are always there to push us but also provide a safe space for student athletes,” said Jenna Caballero, one of the captains for the women’s hockey team. “The administrators and professors give us the opportunity to learn while still being flexible with our complex schedules. It really means everything to have all the support we can have behind us, which makes female athletics at Suffolk so positive.”
Support in the classroom is crucial to the long-forgotten part of being a student athlete, the student portion of their responsibilities.
“I think that the biggest thing is just being flexible, especially since we’re in a unique situation, we’re in the middle of Boston so we do have to travel to fields and rinks and I know that that creates a lot of stress sometimes, but just being flexible on both ends of understanding that we’re here for academics and athletics, that’s the big thing of DIII,” said Giavanna Bellino, a sophomore outfielder and catcher on the softball team.
Bellino also serves as the vice president of Suffolk’s new women’s weightlifting club, Move it or Lose it.
“I’ve had a couple of interactions with higher-ups and the athletic facility and they’ve been wicked supportive,” said Bellino. “We started a women’s weightlifting club and they were all in on it. Specifically, Adam Skaggs was a big supporter of that and he’d make sure we get all the stuff that we need.”
Though this supportive experience is not universal.
“Those on women’s sports teams, like coaching staff, are always supporting women. Teachers and administrators do not nearly support us as much,” said Gianna Missiti, a junior on the softball team and the other vice president of Move it or Lose it. “Many times, they get mad when we have a game, tournament or an athletic event that causes us to miss a class. There are some good professors out there but I have found more professors will give me a hard time than provide support.”
Junior Nia Bebb also agrees that women’s sports at Suffolk could use some more support from the administration. As a member of the tennis team, a group already at a disadvantage because of their small roster and travel time off campus to the courts, Bebb described the support by Suffolk for women’s sports as “disappointing,” as well as disproportionately supported by the Suffolk community.
“I do not think the Suffolk community engages equally with women’s sports compared to the men’s. I believe it is much higher for men’s,” said Bebb. “On social media, the men’s teams seem to get more recognition, and even SGA posts about going to watch men’s soccer. I just do not see the same support for women’s sports, even ones that perform really well. I understand why tennis does not have a ton of supporters, but I am shocked more people don’t go to the closer sports, for example women’s volleyball.”
Though both athletes have issues with how support has been handled in the past, an optimism for improvement in the future was expressed. With actions like making a turf field for the softball team like the baseball team or showing more support at games, the success of the athletes and the teams could be improved.
Culture and attendance at sporting events are pillars that can have their structure improved by the student body at Suffolk.
“I would love to see just in general, the student body, bands, clubs and stuff like that [at games],” said Bellino. “Just a big student body presence. I think that soccer gets a lot of fans, which is good especially because it’s the fall and everyone’s kind of eager to go, but just like creating that community around women’s sports.”
Supporting each other as student athletes is also key to success for the women’s athletics programs as a whole, and something that is a unique trend at Suffolk compared to other schools.
“We have a very powerful group of women athletes I think and they’re all very interconnected. I mean, my girls who are on cross country or on the track side of it, they’re friends with girls on the basketball team, or they’re friends with girls on the soccer team, or the volleyball team and I’ve been at schools even myself when I went to school as an athlete where that’s really not the case,” said Kerstin Darsney, cross country associate head coach.
“Sometimes you get just a little more competition between sports, and in that sense, the girls don’t really get along, but I really don’t see that at Suffolk. I mean a couple of my girls are managers for the basketball team and I got a girl from the basketball team as our manager,” said Darsney.
Looking across teams, this support can make waves in not only Suffolk sports but women’s sports as a whole.
“I think women’s sports is still up and coming which makes men’s sports a little more popular still, but the immense support we have gotten in the last four years regarding women’s sports has been huge,” said Caballero. “We can see it with the WNBA and the attendance records broken with top talent being drawn in. I think no doubt women’s sports will be just as popular as men’s sports in a few years to come.”
Division III schools like Suffolk may seem small, but with nearly 300 athletes across all rosters, they can make a huge impact on not only a university but a whole movement like the rise of women’s sports.
“I love Division III. I love the kids that compete Division III because you know a big part of that is that they’re not getting paid to compete,” said Darsney. “They are practicing and competing purely for love of the game for love of the sport.”
