The NC State club lacrosse team hopes to continue building upon its success by earning its third consecutive playoff bid this year.

Head coach Chris Demarest said that making the playoffs is almost an expectation for the program at this point.

“We don’t overlook it like it’s just going to happen,” Demarest said. “But we’ve made it the past couple years, and we’re looking to go there again.”

However, Demarest said that the real goal for this year is to earn a playoff win, which has eluded the Pack in recent years. Last season, the team finished with a final record of 7-6, posting a conference record of 3-1 and earning a playoff spot, only to be knocked out by Virginia Tech in the first round.

The club opened the 2017 campaign with a strong 13-7 victory over Wake Forest Sunday, which suggests that the Pack is in good shape to pick up where it left off in 2016. Demarest said the team returns the majority of its core on offense, but it did lose a significant number of players on defense.

With this loss in mind, experienced upperclassmen like defender John Hopkins, a junior studying civil engineering, will need to step up and show leadership in order for the club’s success to continue. Nevertheless, Hopkins shares his coach’s enthusiasm and hopes to be even better than last year.

“[We] hope to make the playoffs this year, win a couple games and go from there,” Hopkins said.

Starting goalie Parker Staton, a sophomore studying chemistry, is also positive and likes what he has seen so far from his team.

“The offense has really picked it up, and so has the defense,” Staton said. “We’ve had a lot of freshmen come in that have showed a lot of potential, and we’re hoping to help them get better.”

There is still a lot of season left to determine the legacy of this particular team, but assuming it’s able to attain its goals, it could potentially put the program on the right track to become varsity level once again.

The Wolfpack had a varsity program that started in the early 1970s, and it actually had a good amount of success then too. It even had a player who would eventually become and still remains third all-time in NCAA Division I history for career goals, Stan Cockerton. Unfortunately for the Pack, the program was cut due to lack of funding in 1982.

The financial issues are still the primary reason that lacrosse has not regained its varsity status at NC State. But that doesn’t mean the players wouldn’t love to see it happen though.

“We’d love to see us get a [varsity] team and play Duke and Chapel Hill in the Triangle,” said captain Miller Barbour, a junior studying economics.

While it is unlikely to happen in the near future, a varsity program at NC State is something that is fairly likely to happen one day. Lacrosse has grown in popularity nationwide, and there has been significant growth in North Carolina, even though it’s been concentrated primarily in Charlotte and Raleigh.

Demarest and his players have noticed this growth, and they all said they believe lacrosse will continue to grow in the future. Staton said he thinks it could one day rise to the same level of popularity as hockey.

Demarest attributes this rise in popularity to a number of factors, but he thinks the biggest reason it is growing is that kids are getting tired of playing traditional sports.

Demarest and his players agreed that lacrosse combines the elements of more popular, traditional sports like football and basketball, making it an easy transition for those who want to play a third sport in the spring.

“It’s more fun than track and you can still hit your friends,” Demarest said. “It’s a good crossover from a lot of different sports, and it’s one of those things where you can take a wrinkle from every sport and build on it.”

Obviously, more people playing a sport is the first step to growing its popularity and that is definitely happening as more schools create lacrosse programs. But while there is evidence to suggest that lacrosse might become a more prominent sport in the future, there’s still a long way to go for NC State’s program.

For now, it remains a club sport only and is open to all members of the student body. The team does play in a very competitive league, and therefore prior playing experience is highly recommended.

But as Demarest said, lacrosse is a good crossover sport. Conversely, if you want to learn more about the sport firsthand, the club’s next game is Friday at 7:30 p.m.