Florida State Gearing Up for Year One

Some talk of an “endless summer” this time of year. But in the Sunshine State, some have already started to focus on fall. Florida State will play its first season of Division I women’s lacrosse in the spring, and an early, player-led fall ball is already underway, burgeoned by the announcement of 14 transfers.

Julia Ward was one.

“I took a 16-hour auto train ride with my twin sister, Lydia [Ward], [freshman defender] Loghan McNamara and [freshman midfielder] Olivia Sprinkle, and we threw ourselves in,” said Ward, a goalie who transferred from Maryland. “By the end of those 16 hours, Loghan and Lydia were already best friends.”

The 16-hour ride and fast friendships were just the start for FSU. The Ward twins — including Lydia, a midfielder who came over as part of an unofficial “package deal” with Julia — are two of the 13 transfers head coach Sara Tisdale announced in late June. And while Tisdale will join and helm the squad when fall ball officially begins, she doesn’t plan to do away with the player-led approach.

“This will not be a Sara Tisdale-led team,” Tisdale said. “This will be me putting the right people in the right places, with the right resources, and making sure that we can have the right chemistry to come together.”

To find those resources, Tisdale had to hit the portal. The 14-player haul announced in late June included six fifth years and three seniors. The Ward twins are entering their sophomore seasons. They will join a roster that already included five mid-year transfers — including Sprinkle, a freshman midfielder who came in from East Carolina — and 14 freshmen straight out of high school.

“They had something I can’t teach, and that is experience,” Tisdale said. “They know what it’s like to go through a season, travel, prepare for a top-five opponent — things you have to live through. I also didn’t shy away from the Ward twins or Meg Kenny [a sophomore midfielder from Maryland] or Siena Cassella [a sophomore midfielder from Rutgers]. Those players only had a year under their belt, but it was valuable time. They’re coming in knowing what it’s like to be great teammates and letting the younger players know what it took to be successful. That was a priority.”

To do that, Tisdale also opted to find players from programs she knew had upstanding cultures. Maryland is one of winning — the Terps’ 10 titles are a Division I high mark.

Going from a historic program to a first-year one is a significant shift, but that was part of the appeal for the Wards.

“I want to make an impact, and I want to show the entire lacrosse community what my team can do,” Julia Ward said. “Maryland had that reputation already, so when I had the opportunity to come to Florida State, it was impossible to turn down ... the opportunity to be a pioneer on Team One. [I want to] go back in 15 years when we’re winning national championships and be like, ‘I was a part of Team One. I built the culture, and I was there to make it happen.’”

UMass head coach Jana Drummond is another person Tisdale trusts. Drummond also coached Catrina Tobin, whose trajectory and backstory Tisdale admired. After redshirting her true freshman season, Tobin was the starting netminder for the Minutewomen in 2022 and 2023, earning all-conference accolades but experiencing the disappointment of falling short in the Atlantic 10 tournament.

UMass fell in an upset loss to Saint Joseph’s in the 2022 semifinal and Richmond in the 2023 and 2024 finals before prevailing against the Spiders in 2025.

“She is someone who had to figure it out, and she didn’t have a perfect career,” Tisdale said. “She earned everything she had. She’s coming from a culture where she had to learn to be a leader. I see a lot of myself in Catrina. We’re the same person 24/7. I’m not one person on the field and another person in the office and out in the community, and Catrina is the most authentic young person I’ve ever interacted with.”

Tobin also felt the authenticity from Tisdale and the FSU and greater Tallahassee communities. It was a draw for Tobin, along with a criminal justice master’s program that she felt would position her well to return to Massachusetts to pursue a career in law enforcement.

“The buy-in from the community here is incredible,” Tobin said. “The women who sit at the front desk of our new athletic facility are even buying in. They sit there for a couple of hours a day and greet you when you walk in and say, ‘Women’s lacrosse. We want to know all about it.’ They’re not just adding a program at Florida State. They want to add a program that wins championships, and they want to pour every single resource that they have into us.”

Tobin has been in Tallahassee for three weeks, but Sprinkle had felt the love since arriving in the winter. While Sprinkle doesn’t have a year of playing under her belt, she does have four years of eligibility remaining and was able to get acclimated to the staff and community during the spring semester.

“Every single place you look, there is someone pumped for lacrosse,” Sprinkle said. “I was itching to start something new and build something from the ground up. I spent all summer excited to have a team, and the last few weeks with the [newer players have been incredible.”

Florida State is also building a lacrosse-only facility from the ground up. It’ll feature a turf field, various seating options for fans and a team building complete with a lounge, locker rooms and meeting rooms.

“There are shovels in the ground and big machines out there already,” Tisdale said. “The facility will be ready for our first game on February 7, and I don’t know what more you can ask for ... The new building is a physical symbol, and we have the financial support — a scholarship and operating budget. We’re here to compete, and we have the resources to be able to do that.”

If it sounds familiar, it’s because Clemson also recently built a lacrosse-only facility, brought in high-profile recruits and transfers and made the NCAA tournament and won a first-round game in its third season in 2025. Like FSU, the Tigers compete in the gauntlet ACC — and made the conference tournament semifinal in the spring.

“I have a ton of respect for what Clemson did,” Tisdale said. “I don’t want to compare us to them. At the same time, everyone has turned their attention to Clemson, and they did a great job of recruiting great people who could make a difference for the program early on. Did we watch and learn from them? No doubt, but I think we’ll be able to put our own Florida State twist on how we go about doing that this year.”

What will all that mean? Tisdale has her own vision, but to be honest, the puzzle is still coming together.

“Three weeks ago, we didn’t even have our full transfer class signed,” she said. “To be upfront with you, our plan this fall is to evaluate our strengths, our weaknesses and the system we’ll work best in. We’re not just incorporating a few new players into a system. We are all new. I’d love for us to play a high-paced, up-tempo offensive transition game. I still love to ride. On the defensive end, I don’t see us sitting back and taking the game as it comes. I hope we’re a tough team to play, a relentless team that has its [foot on] the gas pedal for 60 minutes.”

Tisdale’s goal is to rev up the momentum, starting with a top-eight finish in the ACC, which would qualify FSU for the conference tournament.  

“We all know what it means to be able to say you’re a top team in the ACC,” Tisdale said. “By year five, I consistently want our name mentioned in the top five in the country. I want to be competing for and winning national championships, and I don’t think that’s unrealistic with the resources we have here and the talent we’ve been able to attract so far.”

Blue-chip talent with blue-collar grit.

“The players are all here voluntarily,” Tisdale said. “I have not stepped foot on the field with them yet. I have not stepped foot in the weight room with them. They don’t see it as giving up their summer. They see it as, ‘I get to do this’ versus, ‘I have to do this. I get to travel and represent Florida State.’ That takes care of almost everything in your program.”

Tisdale isn’t currently on the field, but the players with cleats on the ground are speaking her language.

“Everyone is buying in and coming down here for voluntary lifts, conditioning and practices that are tough,” Julia Ward said. “It’s showing that we’re going to kill it this year because so many people have drive, motivation and heart, and that’s not a thing that you can just coach.”

And Florida State hopes to turn that intangible into something tangible — quickly.

“I'm excited to be the underdog team,” Sprinkle said. “It’s going to be easy for people to look at us as a new program and not expect much, but we’re going to hold our own. We’re going to compete.”