MARQUETTE – The Northern Michigan University women’s lacrosse team doesn’t begin play for more than a year, but the program already has its first piece in place.

Emilia Ward was named head coach of the Wildcats team this week, coming most recently from Pfeiffer University, a Division II program in North Carolina.

Ward has helped build three women’s lacrosse teams as a coach. Before going to Pfeiffer, she helped build the program at downstate Kalamazoo College, where over two seasons she had three players earn all-Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association awards. The Hornets were also named to the Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association Academic Honor Roll twice and 10 players earned all-MIAA academic honors.

She was also an assistant coach at another MIAA school, Adrian College from 2008-11, where the Bulldogs made the 2011 NCAA tournament; an assistant coach at Division I Winthrop University in South Carolina; where she helped launch that program; and head coach at Division II Alderson Broaddus University in West Virginia where she was its first coach.

Before coaching, Ward played at Division I Manhattan College in New York from 2005-08. She was a member of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference academic team all four years, and in 2005 she helped lead Manhattan to the NCAA tournament.