Salisbury Women's Lacrosse pre-championship game, 5-26-24
Keith Lucas

2025 Women's Lacrosse Season Preview

By Nick Lewis
WLAX Celebration vs. William Smith, 5-24-24

2024 Season Recap

 

The four-time national champion Salisbury University women's lacrosse team earned an appearance in the season's final game for the 10th time in program history in 2024, hoisting the conference championship trophy for a seventh straight season. The Sea Gulls finished with an 18-4 overall record, breezing to a 15-4 win over Christopher Newport in the Coast-to-Coast Athletic Conference (C2C) title game. Picked as hosts for the 2024 NCAA Tournament, the Sea Gulls earned wins over Cabrini (23-6), Babson (15-10) and Washington & Lee (12-8) inside Sea Gull Stadium to punch their ticket to the Final Four. SU avenged a regular season defeat to William Smith with a 13-10 triumph in the national semifinal before bowing out to Middlebury in the national championship. Natalie Held was named the IWLCA Division III Defender of the Year, while the squad earned four  All-American nods and a region-high eight All-Region selections. Head coach Jim Nestor and his staff were also christened the IWLCA Chesapeake Region Coaching Staff of the Year.

WLAX Celebration vs. W&L, 5-19-24

2025 Season Preview

2025 Players to Watch

Miranda Mears vs. W&L, 5-19-24
Miranda Mears | Jr. | A
Julianna Ott vs. William Smith, 5-24-24
Julianna Ott | Jr. | M
Natalie Held | Sr. | D
  • Miranda Mears - Mears inherits Leah Vilov's number 9 jersey for the 2025 campaign, a fitting way to acknowledge the program's Parkside pipeline. The team's top returning goal-scorer, Mears trailed only Vilov in the category a season ago, ranking sixth in the Coast-to-Coast Athletic Conference (C2C) with 42 goals while appearing in all 22 games for the Sea Gulls. She also recorded five free-position markers on seven tries.
  • Alexandra Parker - Parker eyes a larger role in the Salisbury attack in 2025 after notching career-highs in goals (17), assists (10), points (27), ground balls (17), and caused turnovers (9). Parker logged nine multi-point efforts a season ago, including a pair of assists in the 2024 NCAA Division III National Championship against Middlebury. Parker scored in 13 of her 21 appearances with four multi-goal efforts last season.
  • Abby Lantos - Lantos enters her senior campaign after her best season yet as a Sea Gull, logging 10 goals and a pair of assists across 17 outings in 2024. Lantos put together three multi-goal games last year, including a pair of strikes against Cabrini in the NCAA Tournament's second round.
  • Julianna Ott - Ott emerged as a strong all-around midfielder for the Sea Gulls in 2024, logging 15 goals and a trio of assists while scooping nine ground balls and causing five turnovers. She recorded her first career hat trick on March 2nd at Washington (Md.) while scoring in 12 different matchups last year. Ott also proved her mettle as one of the squad's best draw control specialists, securing 17 across the team's final three games and ranking third on the team with 40 draw controls overall.
  • Grace Doyle - Doyle finished the '24 campaign as one of three players with 17 goals while also finishing fifth on the team with 27 draw controls across 21 appearances. Doyle scored in 12 contests including four goals across the first three games of the season. She tallied a pair of goals in the first go-around with William Smith and her first career hat trick against Chicago. 
  • Natalie Held - Held, the reigning IWLCA Division III Defender of the Year and 2025 USA Lacrosse Preseason All-American, established herself as one of the nation's best disrupters a season ago. Held tallied career-highs in draw controls (83), ground balls (55) and caused turnovers (40), leading the team in all three categories and ranking second in the C2C in caused turnovers per game (1.82). She was crowned SU's 2023-24 Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year and became the 49th Academic All-American in the history of Salisbury athletics in addition to sweeping First-Team All-American accolades.
  • Reagan Davis - Davis started all 22 games on the Salisbury back line in 2024, logging 19 ground balls and causing 14 turnovers. Davis began last season's NCAA Tournament with a bang, recording two ground balls and causing two turnovers in back-to-back contests against Cabrini and Babson in the second and third rounds.
  • Abby Fleishell - Fleishell joined the starting defense due to injury and blossomed into a lockdown defender in her sophomore campaign, chasing down 29 ground balls and causing 13 turnovers across 20 appearances and 16 starts. She scooped three or more ground balls on four occasions and caused a career-high three turnovers in the C2C title game against CNU on May 4th.
Nestor and Team, 3-13-24 vs. Gettysburg
Head Coach Jim Nestor
We're always battling for our conference championship, but then we want to get into that national tournament and take it one game at a time. It takes hard work, dedication and commitment from our players, and if they continue doing that throughout this year and we get a little bit better, it should be a nice year.
Head Coach Jim Nestor on goals and expectations for the 2025 season
2025 WLAX Schedule Reveal 1
2025 WLAX Schedule Reveal 2
2025 Schedule
2025 Roster

#GoGulls | #ChampionsWearGold

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