Lindley Ward is a fifth-year senior women’s lacrosse player at Piedmont University. Before knowing what lacrosse was, Ward held a softball bat instead of a lacrosse stick. Ward is the youngest of four and was surrounded by softball and baseball growing up.
“Softball was ingrained in my life, and I didn’t really know anything else, so I stuck with it,” said Ward.
Ward played softball for most of her life. While in middle school, Ward was given the opportunity to play travel softball and loved it. Growing up in a family where her siblings played softball and baseball, it was only right that Ward played and excelled in it so fast.
Once getting into high school, Ward was approached by the head lacrosse coach at her high school in the spring semester of her freshman year. The coach stated that the school is starting a girl’s lacrosse team and wanted Ward to try out.
“It was going to keep me in good shape for softball,” said Ward.
Ward tried out for the lacrosse team, and it was love at first sight.
“The people on the lacrosse team treated me like a human and the seniors didn’t talk down to me as a freshman,” said Ward.
Once she felt how the lacrosse team treated her, Ward put down the softball bat for the high school team and picked up the lacrosse stick. Even though she only started playing lacrosse her freshman year, Ward loved the sport so much that she wanted to know anything she could about the sport and trained relentlessly.
Ward carried her stick around the halls of her school to get better at handling the ball. When she started taking the sport more serious, she joined a club team her sophomore year of high school.
“I joined this club team because it was mostly girls from my high school team, so I felt comfortable and you can tell how much chemistry we had after travel season in the high school games,” said Ward.
Ward’s love grew even more for the sport, and she had to make a tough decision. The financial strain of playing travel softball and club lacrosse was too much, and she ultimately quit softball and stuck with lacrosse. In her senior season Ward had a choice, either play lacrosse in college or just go to school as a regular student. Ward chose to play collegiate lacrosse and started receiving offers.
“My coach made me a Hudl for recruiting and the offers started rolling in,” said Ward.
Ward started receiving offers from programs that had just started and programs that were rebuilding, but none of them floated her boat. After all those offers, Ward was approached by Piedmont and was asked to come for a visit. Ward visited Piedmont and fell in love with the program and school.
“My mom asked me how I felt, and even she said Piedmont was the place. I agreed with her,” said Ward.
After all that, Ward has been at Piedmont for the past five years and has been a prominent member of the women’s lacrosse team ever since.
