The Division II Women's Lacrosse Committee has voted to oppose a recommendation by the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports that would require protective eyewear during next season's championship tournaments in all divisions.

The committee, which conducted its annual meeting June 8-11 in Savannah, Georgia, formed its decision after reviewing the Fall 2002 Protective Eyewear Project report. The committee's rationale for opposing the recommendation is that the NCAA does not make the playing rules for women's lacrosse, but adopts the rules of the national governing body for the sport, U.S. Lacrosse.

The lacrosse committee unanimously supports the stance of U.S. Lacrosse, which "highly recommends" protective eyewear for the entire 2004 season and requires it for the entire 2005 season. The lacrosse committee holds that requiring protective eyewear for the 2004 championship under the competitive-safeguards committee recommendation would be an advantage for those schools capable of incurring the immediate expense at the start of the regular season when playing against schools that could get them only immediately before the championship tournament.

The lacrosse committee further holds that requiring this equipment after most institutions have completed annual budgets would create a financial hardship for some institutions. Additionally, the players on teams that do not wear the eyewear during the regular season may gain the advantage during those games by having better field vision than the players on the teams that do have the protective eyewear.

The lacrosse committee also maintains that adequate product availability and delivery has yet to be demonstrated by the manufacturers of the equipment.

The issue will be forwarded to the Division II Championships Committee and the Division II Management Council.

In other matters, the lacrosse committee will recommend to the Division II Championships Committee that it be permitted to increase the squad size to 26 and the travel party to 32 to meet gender-equity numbers and to avoid leaving home team members who participated all season. Previous numbers were 24 and 30. Currently, the men's numbers are 28 and 34. This request also was made by coaches at this year's Intercollegiate Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association meetings.

The committee also elected to eliminate the Internet championship selection show because of a lack of viewers and the high cost of production.

Finally, the committee will recommend to the Championships Committee that it be permitted to change the strength-of-schedule formula so that a win over a Division I opponent be dropped to 4.5 points from 5.5, the figure for last season. The rationale is that the previously higher reward might tempt some schools to schedule relatively weak Division I schools to get the extra point. The committee prefers that Division II teams schedule fellow Division II teams.