RV alum Hanson leads Benedictine team to national title

Clare Hanson had never given thought to participating in the sport of lacrosse until after graduating from Royal Valley High School in 2014.

Now, Hanson has the distinction of leading the women’s lacrosse team at Benedictine College in Atchison to a national championship in her first year as the team’s head coach.

“If you would have asked us in the fall whether we thought we were going to win it all, we’d be like, ‘Heck, no!’” said Hanson, who had served the Ravens as a graduate assistant coach for two years prior and played with the Ravens during all four of her years as a student at Benedictine.

Hanson was named Benedictine’s head women’s lacrosse coach last November after Amanda Magee, who left the program she originated in 2015 to take a similar job at a Rhode Island college.

Now, after leading the school to its first-ever national title at the the 2022 National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) National Championship Tournament, Hanson believes the Ravens have the ability to remain a viable power in the sport of lacrosse.

“We’ve been in the top eight in the nation the last four years,” she said. “Maintaining that and recruiting kids who are going to be great for Benedictine and for our culture and who are going to be great at lacrosse is going to be key. If we can keep doing that year after year, we could be on top for a long time.”

Lacrosse is a team sport where players try to get a ball into a net or goal using a long stick with a net attached at the end, and players can run, carry, catch, shoot and pass the ball with the net of the stick. It is described by players and fans as a cross between basketball, soccer and hockey, and it is recognized as the oldest organized sport in North America.

After graduating from Royal Valley, Hanson — who was part of the Panthers’ volleyball, basketball and softball programs — figured her day as an athlete might be done, since she hadn’t yet been exposed to “club sports,” teams that allow young athletes the ability to play at a competitive level without having a connection to a particular school or college.

“I didn’t really know how the recruiting process worked while I was in high school,” she said. “So I thought, ‘OK, I’ll just have to give up sports…’”

Hanson knew she wanted to go to Benedictine, however, and was told about the sport of lacrosse on a visit to the school, even though she admitted not knowing the first thing about the sport, offered at the time as a “club sport.” She attended a meeting for the club team and picked up an interest based on connections she drew between lacrosse and her high school basketball and softball days.

And then she threw herself into the game, and she got better and better.

“I just didn’t want to suck at it,” she said with a laugh.

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