Former US National Team member Erica Bamford (née LaGrow), the unanimous 2024 Ivy League Coach of the Year, has led the Yale women's lacrosse team to unprecedented levels of success. The Bulldogs have made back-to-back trips to the NCAA Tournament quarterfinals, and won back-to-back Ivy League Tournament titles.
In 2024 the team set the school record for wins (17), including a pair of wins in the NCAA Tournament. The Bulldogs also claimed their first outright Ivy League Championship (they shared the title in 1980 and 2003) by going 7-0 in league games during the regular season. They then won the Ivy League Tournament for the first time in school history. Yale was ranked as high as No. 1 in the RPI and No. 6 in the ILWomen/IWLCA national poll. The Bulldogs established school records for goals, assists, points, caused turnovers and draw controls.
The Bulldogs have been building towards this level of success for several years. Bamford has led Yale to four straight appearances in the Ivy League Tournament championship game. The Bulldogs were ranked as high as No. 13 in the national poll in 2023. Their 2022 win total (11) was, at the time, their best since 2008. They tied what was the school record for Ivy League wins in a season (six) and earned a spot in the Ivy League Tournament for the first time. They went on to beat Cornell for their first Ivy League Tournament win.
The 2023 season featured several other milestone victories, including the team's first win vs. Penn since 2004, the team's first win at Cornell since 2004 and the team's first win vs. Dartmouth since 2015. The Bulldogs earned a national ranking and broke the school records for goals and draw controls. The team's second-place finish in the Ivy League represented, at the time, its best finish in the standings since 2007.
Bamford was announced as Yale’s Joel E. Smilow, Class of 1954 Head Coach of Women’s Lacrosse on July 1, 2015. The early part of her tenure in New Haven saw the Bulldogs make a number of strides. In her first season they were in contention for a spot in the Ivy League Tournament until the final game, and they saw year-to-year improvements in their shooting percentage, free position shooting percentage, draw controls, clears and save percentage.
In Bamford’s second season, 2017, the team broke the school records for goals, points and draw controls in a season. Yale also beat a ranked opponent for the first time since 2010. In 2018 the Bulldogs beat a pair of ranked opponents and had, at the time, the second-most draw controls in program history. The 2020 team was off to a 4-2 start before the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancelation of the season.
In Bamford's time in New Haven, Yale has had 11 All-America honorees, an Ivy League Midfielder of the Year, 15 first team All-Ivy League selections, two Ivy League Tournament Most Outstanding Players and one finalist for the Yeardley Reynolds Love Unsung Hero Award.
The Bulldogs have excelled in the classroom, earning the IWLCA Academic Merit Squad honor for the top GPA in the country in 2018 and 2019 while also earning IWLCA Academic Honor Squad recognition in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Prior to joining the Bulldogs, Bamford spent seven years as an assistant coach at Florida. She helped the Gators make five straight NCAA Tournament appearances, win five regular season conference championships and win three conference tournament championships. She also has a gold medal from the Women’s World Cup during her time playing with the National Team.
At Florida Bamford worked under former Yale head coach Amanda O’Leary, a USA Lacrosse Hall of Fame member who has earned multiple national coach of the year honors. Bamford was the Gators’ offensive coordinator and helped the team lead the nation in goals with 326 in her final season -- the fourth straight season the Gators scored at least 310 goals and finished in the top five nationally in scoring offense.
Bamford graduated with honors from North Carolina in 2008, earning a bachelor’s degree in exercise and sports science. She was a part of four straight NCAA quarterfinal appearances for the Tar Heels. In her senior season she scored 24 goals, was named second team All-South Region for the second time and was named first team All-Atlantic Coast Conference. A four-year starter at midfield, she was on the conference honor roll every year. She also earned All-ACC Academic honors twice, and received the University of North Carolina Athletics Director’s Scholar-Athlete Award for excellence in academics and athletics.
In addition to her standout collegiate career, Bamford was also a member of the U.S. Women’s National Team from 2007-2012. In the summer of 2009, she helped the U.S. win gold at the Federation of International Lacrosse Women’s World Cup in Prague. Additionally, she was a member of the touring team that captured the 2008 Prague Cup.
Bamford was born in Syracuse, N.Y., and attended Christian Brothers Academy where she is a member of the 2014 Lasallian Athletic Hall of Fame class. In 2022, she was inducted into the Upstate Lacrosse Hall of Fame.Â
Bamford's husband, Ryan, is a former athletics administrator at Yale and Georgia Tech who currently serves as the director of athletics at the University of Massachusetts. The Bamford family has two sons.
