Yesterday, a team which could very well be the seventh women’s lacrosse team in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation announced the hiring of a head coach.

Fresno State announced the hiring of Sue Behme to take over a fledgling program that will play its first game in less than a year.

Now, I’m not writing off the program before it even begins, but I have to question some of the timing. The addition of a new team in the MPSF has immediate benefits for the likes of Denver, Stanford, and Oregon. These three teams which will likely contend for the 2009 post-season tournament title, since the MPSF is now large enough for an automatic qualifier berth to the NCAA Division I Tournament.

I believe Fresno State is starting at an extreme disadvantage right now; the recruiting season is long gone not only for incoming freshmen, but even for next year’s seniors in high school. Why Behme is being made to assemble a team in less than four months for fall-ball is beyond your Founder’s comprehension.

“As soon as the kids start the first day of class, I can set something up because that’s when it’s legal to do that,” she told a press conference yesterday in California. “It’s a comprehensive recruiting effort and once I’m finalized here, we’ll also promote the ability and availability for the kids who’ve used their eligibility up in other sports and say they’re here for grad school. There are a lot of options.”

Fresno State will, I believe, take a much longer time to build towards competitiveness because of its late start, as well as the fact that the lacrosse program may find itself competing against a nationally-ranked program in women’s softball right on the same campus.

The Bulldog nine, led by head coaching legend Margie Wright, has cast a two-decade-long shadow on campus, sending numerous players to the Olympics and winning an NCAA title in 1998.

It’s a tough ask for the lacrosse team to match that kind of success, but with more than 127 high school varsity and club teams in the state, there is sure to be a decent pool of players available, even at this stage.