Since the last pitch of the sporting season for Pace was thrown on Saturday afternoon, May 3, the offseason is now underway, with numerous changes beginning to take place for Pace Athletics.

One of those changes is being overseen by women’s lacrosse coach Michael Spinner, as he enters the final stages of creating the first ever women’s lacrosse team at Pace, and prepares for the spring 2015 season.

Currently, Spinner finds himself with about twenty recruits, as he hopes to form a team of about thirty players, which he describes as a healthy and competitive roster.

“I’m hoping for about eight or ten more right now,” Spinner said. “But I have to say that we have such a great athletic team and admissions team here at Pace, they have been so helpful and have been so instrumental in making this happen.”

Spinner has been recruiting from nearby-areas such as Long Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Baltimore, the “hotbed” for lacrosse.

Although some potential players made the decision to go to schools that were further away from home, many of them have been drawn by Pace’s academic excellence, as well as the lure of being a part of a new program.

Knowing that it will be the team’s first season ever, Spinner understands the challenges that might arise when forming a team. He hopes that by the second year every starter will have played lacrosse in high school.

Spinner knows that the first year will mainly be the team adjusting to the NE-10 conference, which Spinner believes is the best conference in terms of women’s lacrosse. But with the right effort and attitude, Spinner trusts that the team can have success.

“Of course we want to win games, but we need to be realistic,” Spinner said. “I think you need to take a methodical approach and you need to build a solid foundation to work off of. I think you know going into year one you’ll only win two or three games, but you need to be smart about it.”

It’s all about the mindset that one acquires, as Spinner states that in order to have a successful season, the team needs to just go out and find their comfort level.

The first year is not so much about winning games, but instead about finding the right pace that works for the team.

“We can’t focus on how to beat the opposing team just yet, because you set yourself up for failure if you think about how to win,” Spinner said.

But before there can be a team, certain steps need to be taken. Once the entire roster is set and all the spaces are filled, it’s important for Spinner to make sure that his players are comfortable with one another.

In order to build up the team, Spinner will allocate four to six weeks minimum in order to dabble in some “team building” exercises.

That doesn’t necessarily mean learning how to play with another, as Spinner wants to ensure that his team has fun as they being their journey as Pace’s first ever women’s lacrosse team.

“We need to make sure that we are an actual team,” said Spinner, who has experience with starting programs from his days as an Assistant Coach at Manhattanville College. “Whether it be going out to lunch or going to the soccer game to support the other Pace athletes, I really want to make sure that we all feel like we are unified, that we are a team before we start practices.”

Once that stage is complete, the team will begin its practices later in the fall, before beginning the season in March.

Despite having a team mainly composed of freshman, Spinner does have five recruits who are current students at Pace, giving the team a much needed veteran presence.

Having internal players “will add to what we are doing” according to Spinner. The veteran players will be able to teach the freshman “the ropes” of Pace, bringing much needed experience and leadership to the team.

With the final spots being filled up, Spinner looks to the future with excitement and gratitude, as he prepares to make Pace University history.