Audrey Allen plans to finish her final season on top

When women’s lacrosse player Audrey Allen is on the field, her coaches never have to worry that she won’t play with all she’s got.

Allen said that after discovering lacrosse as a kid, she found it to be the perfect outlet for her intense competitiveness.

“I’m a very aggressive player,” Allen said. “So I think the fact that I got to push people around and beat people up a little bit was appealing to me.”

Allen said she got into sports as a child in the typical way that most kids do.

“Starting off, I was a little chubby kid and my mom was like ‘that’s not gonna happen’,” Allen said.

After spending a year swimming, Allen said she discovered that she wasn’t into the sport. Her mom decided to enroll her into a lacrosse clinic that she hated at first but eventually grew on her.

Allen has played lacrosse from 8th grade onward.

“When I was in high school I didn’t really know where I wanted to go to school but I knew i wanted to be a division 1 lacrosse player,” Allen said.

After being contacted by the coach at the time, she visited Mercer’s campus and decided this is where she wanted to be. She said the beautiful campus and the fact that Mercer was a division 1 school met all of her standards.

During her years here, Allen had to deal with constant transitioning from changing positions, to adapting to a new coach, to attending school in a different state.

Allen is originally from Austin, Texas. She said despite what many people may believe about Texan culture and its relation to the rest of the southern states, she had to deal with adapting to transitioning from Austin to Macon.

“Some people think Texas is the south but it’s not,” Allen said. “We’ve got our own little thing.”

She came to love the city of Macon but often yearns for one thing back in Texas that she can’t get anywhere else.

“Breakfast tacos are the best thing to ever happen in the world but they’re only in Texas,” Allen said.

When Allen first joined the team they were a new program and did not play any other schools.

“The first year we did not compete at all. That was a huge test to how much you loved the sport.”

The current lacrosse coach, Samantha Eustace, was brought into the program two years after Allen joined the team.

“Audrey Allen is one of the two seniors we have here on our team, and she has grown alot over the last year and a half under our current coaching staff,” Eustace said.

Allen originally played midfield but was switched to a defensive position when Eustace came to the program. From what her coach said, Allen adapted to the position quite well, as evidenced by the fact she played in all 18 games last season and started 16 times.

After graduating, Allen has plans on completing an internship with the Salem Red Sox in Virginia, a single A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. Before she leaves however, Allen said she wants to leave Mercer with something to be proud of: a conference championship.

“I expect us to go all the way, to go to the conference tournament and not only win the first round, but to go to the second round and even make it to the final round.”