The England Women’s senior team is about to embark on a demanding weeklong tour to compete in the 2012 US Lacrosse Champion Challenge, Florida. They will compete against some of the best women’s lacrosse teams in America over 5 days. The tournament in its seventeenth year will be held again at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Lake Buena Vista, Florida.

Leading the team will be England Head Coach Sarah Butt she explains that “This will be very much a learning experience for the Senior Elite Squad playing 6 games in 5 days against the top US College teams and the current US Squad. Some of the players toured last year and can build on that experience but a couple of players are new caps and have never toured with the Senior Squad so the priority for them is to play at top intensity. We haven’t seen the US Squad since the last World Cup in Prague and so it will give us an invaluable insight into their level and standard of play.”
England will play six games during the tour which will see them go head to head with reigning world champions USA, including members of the most recent Federation of International Lacrosse (FIL) world championship squads, as well as top NCAA Division 1 schools such as six time national champions Northwestern University, University of Maryland, University of Syracuse, Jacksonville and the University of Florida.

Schedule:

Tuesday          24-Jan      Depart the UK for the USA
Wednesday     25-Jan      England v Jacksonville University
Thursday         26-Jan      England v University of Florida
Friday               27-Jan     England v USA
Saturday          28-Jan      England v Northwestern
England v Syracuse
Sunday            29-Jan       England v Maryland

*Games highlighted in bold indicate Champions Challenge tournament games.

The management team would like to congratulate the following players who have been selected for the tour.

Hannah Barnsley
Katy Bennett
Sophie Brett
Jane Brierly
Charlie Finnigan
Cat Gaunt
Emily Gray
Annie Hillier
Georgie Hurt
Sally Keogh
Rachel Kirchheimer
Kirsten Lafferty
Charlie Lawson
Alana Livesey
Lucy Lynch
Laura Merrifield
Camilla Paget
Ali Smith
Ashleigh Smith
Ruby Smith
Keely Watt

Reserves

Alex Bruce
Nat Krekis
Asha Niven
Laura Plant
Steph Webb

If you would like to follow the teams progress during the tour please use the following links:

US Lacrosse – Champions Challenge Website