There are no NCAA Division I lacrosse programs in Texas. And there are certainly no Division I lacrosse programs in The Woodlands, Texas. So when senior goalie Matt Nunes, back in 2012, hopped in the car for the 30-minute drive to watch Army play Air Force for the second Division I game in Houston since 1970, it meant something.
“That was something that always stuck with me,” Nunes said. “And it kind of gives you the dreams.”
An almost identical event is happening this weekend, in the same state and on the same field where a young Nunes was introduced in-person to high-level lacrosse. Virginia and Towson will meet Saturday at Houston’s Kinkaid School, in the first of two games this season taking place in Texas. Both are part of the 2025 Corrigan Sports Enterprises College Lacrosse Live Series, which is in its second year of existence but its first venturing to Texas. Other games will be held in Maryland and New York.
The series will help expose kids, prospects and fans in the Longhorn State to lacrosse, which has a small but strong culture in the state. Nunes — and the four other Texas natives on the roster — has the opportunity to give the same experience he once had to a new generation. Most kids in the area have never seen high-level lacrosse played in person, but unique events like this can spark an early love for the game.
“It's really neat because they'll be able to go to their backyard after the game on Saturday and try out whatever McCabe [Millon] does on the field, or whatever Ben Wayer does, or whatever a Towson player may do,” Nunes said. “It really gives them like, ‘I can be that kid out on the field one day.’”
Nunes was ranked the nation’s top goalie coming out of high school and the No. 3 overall prospect, but his first sport was tackle football, a story all too familiar for athletes from Texas. Football is ingrained into Texas culture — the phrase “Friday Night Lights” is synonymous with the glory that comes with high school football, making it the sport that many elite athletes from the area pour their efforts into practicing.
For Nunes and The Woodlands, as with freshman defender Reese Stepanian and Houston, the local lacrosse community felt small. But it is growing rapidly. Dallas is a burgeoning hotspot, home to freshman attackman Sean Browne, senior midfielder Anthony Ghobriel and senior attacker Thomas Mencke, and the location of the College Lacrosse Live Series’s other Texas game, March 22 between Duke and Denver.
“I would argue that that's probably the second most popular sport in the community, behind football,” Mencke said. “The majority of the kids who play lacrosse also play football, and obviously vice versa.”
Mencke’s passion for lacrosse started at a young age, as his older brother played the sport growing up before going on to play Division I at Harvard. His love for the game is not unique to his situation, though, as his high school, Highland Park, pumps out college talent every year. So does Episcopal School of Dallas, where Browne, who is redshirting this year, played.
Texas seems to have a tight-knit lacrosse community forming on its own, even outside of those bounds. Mencke and Nunes competed against each other starting in third grade despite being separated by three hours.
“All the guys that played lacrosse in Texas, that were at least my year, were all pretty close and kind of keep up with each other,” Mencke said.
But the sport ultimately runs through the East Coast and the Northeast, whether that be in watching elite-level lacrosse or competing against the best in the country. The sport is played in high schools across the country, but there exist just three NCAA Division I lacrosse programs west of the Mississippi. Texas has its fair share of MCLA programs — collegiate non-varsity teams competing under their own governing body — but that is not quite the same level.
“For anything serious with the game of lacrosse, it was always traveling three, four hours to the East Coast — generally New York, Maryland, Philadelphia, that sort of environment,” Mencke said. “Simply put, I never thought that I would play a college lacrosse game in Texas.”
Coach Lars Tiffany jumped at the opportunity to make it happen. Well aware of the growing hotbed in the state — with five currently rostered players and another, Ben Boyer from Highland Park, where Mencke and Ghobriel both played, coming next year — he saw the potential benefits.
“I'm happy to do a neutral site game if it's a destination where we can do some recruiting that we don't normally go to,” Tiffany said. “When they threw out the opportunity of Texas, I said, ‘That'd be great.’”
The game will come with perhaps more pressure than he anticipated. Virginia fell out of the national rankings last week, languishing at 2-3, with Saturday’s loss to Johns Hopkins the final blow after shocking upsets to Richmond and Ohio State. Towson is not ranked either, with one win in five games, although it did, like Virginia, come within a goal of the Blue Jays.
Both teams desperately need a win. Either way, though, the trip to Houston will be a positive experience.
Nunes feels like he was passed the torch by players older than him from the area, and now he is the one passing it to the younger generation.
“I was able to pick their minds and ask them questions,” Nunes said. “Just like I'm hopefully trying to be a resource for younger kids.”
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