PressBox recently chatted with Stevenson women’s lacrosse graduate student Kara Yarusso about returning for a fifth year, her growing confidence and more. The 5-foot-8 midfielder posted 68 goals, 26 assists, 44 ground balls, 29 caused turnovers and 96 draw controls in 2024. Yarusso is a native of West Deptford, N.J., and graduate of West Deptford High School.
PressBox also chatted with Yarusso ahead of the 2024 season.
PressBox: Why did you opt to return for the 2025 season?
Kara Yarusso: I had the option to return because my freshman year was still a little bit of COVID, so we only had half of a schedule. We only played conference games. It wasn’t really a full year, so we got that year back. I chose to return. I think truthfully at first I was going back and forth, but there’s a lot of experience returning and a lot of my friends returning. I just thought it’d be really fun [to play] another year. The goal is to win a MAC championship, so I want to do that before I leave here.
PB: What allowed you to score 68 goals in 2024?
KY: There’s two things I think. Number one, my confidence. I think I’ve grown a lot since I first started here in terms of confidence and trusting my abilities on the field. But I think it has a lot to do with my teammates and them setting me up for success as well. We have the motions and those kinds of things where we need a lot of things to be going smoothly in order for that to happen.
PB: How has your confidence grown throughout your career?
KY: Through high school and even my first couple years at Stevenson, a lot of my coaches would be like, “It’s great that you’re so unselfish, but sometimes you need to take it. Sometimes you need to make those big plays.” I think a lot of times I wanted to see my teammates succeed and I wanted to see them make those big plays, which obviously I still do but hearing that it was OK for me to take those chances definitely helped my confidence. Coaches helped me with that, especially in the beginning. If there was an open gap, I would pass it to the next person. But now if I see an open gap, I’m going to go downhill and try to get a goal. I think differences in that mindset and being able to flip that switch has helped me a lot in terms of scoring goals.
PB: How have your coaches helped you develop into an all-around player who is able to stuff the stat sheet every game?
KY: My dad, [Michael], was my coach growing up until college. He still to this day will [talk to me] after games and stuff. He helps me out and coaches me a lot, so I think that’s definitely been really helpful. I grew up with four sisters, so being able to play against them, you learn some new things. Being a coach’s daughter, in club and stuff like that, if there was something that needed to be done, he’d tell me to go do it. I think that was a really big factor and being able to learn how to do a little bit of everything, it [allowed] me to excel in different areas of the field. I think also obviously here my coaches have a lot of faith in me, so they’ve put me in a lot of high-pressure situations where you have to make those plays in order to be successful.
PB: What would it mean to win a MAC Commonwealth championship in 2025?
KY: It would mean a lot. [Two of the past three years] we’ve made it to the MAC championship and we’ve lost by a couple of goals. I think that it’s awesome that we had a close game. Last year [was 8-7], but I’m not the kind of person that’s satisfied by [8-7]. That’s great that we held them to a good game and that’s awesome, but at the same time, we lost. My goal isn’t to go and play a good, competitive game against someone in the championship. My goal is to go and win, so it would mean a lot to me.
PB: Do you have any plans for after lacrosse yet?
KY: I have one more year of my master’s program at Stevenson, but it is online. I’ll probably move back to New Jersey with my family and get a job with the government. I’d love to still keep lacrosse in my life, so finding a way to still coach or be involved in that also. I did my internship with the Department of Defense in budgeting and analytics and all that stuff. I was a business administration undergrad and I’m communications now, so just something that fits that kind of role.
Photo Credit: Sabina Moran/SKM Photography
Issue 291: February / March 2025
Originally published Feb. 19, 2025