The Ursuline College Athletic Department and entire campus community are mourning the loss Ed Karasek who passed away over the weekend after a long battle with cancer. Karasek was the first and only coach in program history.
 
Karasek was hired to start the lacrosse program in 2012 before the team played its first season in the spring of 2014. Prior to coming to Ursuline, Karasek started the women's lacrosse program at Indiana Tech in Fort Wayne where he led the Warriors to the first-ever National Women's Lacrosse League conference championship in 2011. He had an all-time record of 51-27 while with Indiana Tech and his team won the most academic awards in the conference during the 2012 season in which they finished 9-1.
 
At Ursuline, Karasek was a two-time Great Midwest Athletic Conference Coach of the Year in 2016 and 2017 after guiding the Arrows to the league's championship game in both seasons.
 
The 2016 season will go down as one of the most memorable in program history as the Arrows swept through league's inaugural season with a perfect 4-0 record and earned the right to host the first-ever conference tournament. Ursuline defeated Alderson Broaddus 16-11 in a classic championship match to finish off the season as both the regular season and tournament champions.
 
That season the Arrows swept the All-Conference award honors led by Karasek who was named G-MAC Coach of the Year while Cydney Bartlett was named Player of the Year and Hayley Mazreku won Freshman of the Year.
 
In 2017, the Arrows once again won the regular season championship in the G-MAC and earned hosting rights for the post-season tournament. Once again, the Battlers and Arrows met in the championship game, this time with Alderson Broaddus coming out on top 18-15 in another classic match-up between two of the conference's original teams.
 
That season, the Arrows again swept the post-season awards with Karasek winning his second-straight Coach of the Year award and Bartlett being named Player of the Year. Then sophomore Emma Barnes won the Defensive Player of the Year award and Natalie Nowicki shared the Freshman of the Year award honors.
 
In each of the five seasons at the helm of the program, Karasek's teams showed drastic improvements not only on the field but were also outstanding in the classroom. Over the last two years, 10 players from the lacrosse program were named to the G-MAC All-Academic team for having a 3.3 or higher GPA.