In September 2018, Caitlyn Wurzburger, in the midst of authoring a scholastic lacrosse career for the ages, shook up the world of NCAA recruiting by decommitting from Syracuse and announcing her intention to attend the University of North Carolina, where she would win a championship.
In the last couple of days, a similar event has occurred in the world of scholastic lacrosse. Alexa Spallina, the No. 1 recruit from the scholastic lacrosse year of 2025, has changed her intention from Syracuse (where here three brothers attend) to play at Clemson.
Spallina is from a lacrosse family. As we mentioned, her brothers Joey, Brett and Jake are on Syracuse’s men’s lacrosse team. Her father is the current head coach of the Stony Brook women’s team, and has won national championships previously at Division II Adelphi.
As such, anything she does is bound to cause a stir within the lacrosse community. For the moment, the recruiting class for the fall of 2025 is loaded. This includes high-scoring attacker Sienna Chirieleison from Camp Hill Trinity (Pa.), attacking midfielder Ella Peers of Fairport (N.Y.) and Aubrie Eisfeld of Bayport-Blue Point (N.Y.).
Given what we have seen in the world of college sports, with the transfer portal and such, we’re seeing players shopping themselves to a select group of coaches and teams, and freely moving around from one team to another seemingly quicker than baseball players in the free-agency window.
I’ve seen a handful of “suitcase” players in the last quarter-century. I remember players who have transferred between high schools, others who have moved from one college to another. One, who I interviewed several years ago at an indoor tournament, was a fine player, but had failed out of college and was looking for a way back.
That way is a difficult question to ask — “What is the goal?”
