In their 8th year since being established, the Diablo Valley College Lacrosse club finds itself in a upstream battle fighting against the current.

“It’s challenging because we don’t recruit athletes, we can’t pay for their education.  We can only offer them an alternative to a university or state college, while they also receive college credits.  Losing athletes is a loss for us as far as talent goes, but losing them is a good thing. It just means they went on to graduate the program and pursue higher education and to ultimately receive a 4 year degree whether they continue to play lacrosse or not.” said assistant coach Davis Lehman.

After the Vikings lacrosse club was established in 2008, by Terry Armstrong, they have since become a model program for other community college’s lacrosse clubs in California.  A few of the coaches like to refer to Terry Armstrong as “the god-father” of the club, and attributes the success of the club to him.

The team is now facing immense adversity rebuilding what was once a triumphant team after a string of losses.

“This is one of our younger years, meaning most of the experienced players that have been playing lacrosse have gone on to 4 year colleges,” said Bret Rideau. This is his second year of playing lacrosse at Diablo Valley College.

While there are over 200 lacrosse high school teams in California, DVC is currently one of three sanctioned clubs in the California Junior College Lacrosse Association.

“We are rebuilding in the sense that you see stronger outcome in athletes that have been playing from season to season. We’re slowly building that back up.  A lot of the younger athletes have really stepped up, they show up to practice every day, and are constantly seeking to bring the team together as one rather than as individuals.” said Lehman.

The Vikings have a sports psychologist intern from John F. Kennedy University who helps with team building exercises to unify them and works with them one-on-one to give them strategies to improve as leaders.

“Athletes continue to show up because they have a good time and we make it fun and they get to see that they’re improving and that ultimately they’re working towards turning that streak of losses around.” Lehman concluded. 

Off the field, the team participates and hosts events to also assist in keeping them unified.  They host an annual pasta feed ceremony at the beginning of the season. They have a couple days worth of community service that they participate in with the city of Concord, where they offer manual labor to the community.

This year on Saturday, Nov. 12, the Vikings will host an American Cancer Society Benefit game along with St. Mary’s College raising funds and awareness in honor of Lauren McCullough, who was an All-American swimmer at DVC.