National Championships move to Lone Star state after one year run in Minnesota.
BALTIMORE - Dallas will be the host city for the 2006 and 2007 US Lacrosse Intercollegiate Associates National Championships. The 2006 event will be held from May 9-13 at the Russell Creek Athletic Complex and Highland Park High School.
"We're really excited to bring this event to Texas," said Josh Christian, managing director for programs and services for US Lacrosse. "There is tremendous involvement from the local organizing committee and we have outstanding venues that will allow us to create a great experience for the more than 1,000 players and many more fans that will be coming to these championships."
The US Lacrosse Intercollegiate Associates (IA) are college lacrosse teams, primarily at the club level, that compete in a national structure. There are nearly 400 men's and women's teams from around the country competing under the IA umbrella in three divisions.
This year's championships will bring 44 teams to Dallas to compete for three championships. Sixteen teams will compete in the Men's Division A field, 12 in the Men's Division B and 16 in the women's field. All three championships were won by California schools in 2005: UC-Santa Barbara (Men's A), University of San Diego (Men's B) and Cal Poly (Women's).
The preliminary round games will be held at the Russell Creek Athletic Complex and the semifinals and finals will be held at Highland Park's Highlander Stadium, an 8,000-seat, lighted turf field.
Texas is the home to 27 men's and women's college teams that compete at the IA level and more than 200 boys' and girls' high school teams.
The IA championships have grown tremendously in just a short time. The event began in 1997 with just eight men's teams and has steadily expanded over the years to this year's record 44 teams.
US Lacrosse, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, is the national governing body for men's and women's lacrosse. To learn more about the organization, please visit http://www.uslacrosse.org.
A look back at the 2005 IA Championships:
http://www.uslacrosse.org/events/iachampionships05.phtml