Coaches

Hannah Lively

Hannah Lively will begin her seventh season as the head women's lacrosse coach for West Virginia Wesleyan in 2022-23.


Coach Lively has had several players earn Mountain East All-Conference accolades. Under Lively's watch, she coached one player who received All-MEC First Team honors. Wesleyan midfielder Natalie Schaffner was All-MEC First Team in 2017 and 2018. Four Lady 'Cat Lacrosse athletes, Kimberly Lubic (2017), Hannah Antonelli (2018), Haley McGuffin (2018), and Madison Duvall (2019) earned All-MEC Second Team accolades playing under Coach Lively. The lacrosse team has had two players receive All-MEC Honorable Mention honors, Duvall (2017 & 2018) and Lubic (2018) during Lively's tenure. Lively has also coached two student-athletes who were named to the MEC All-Freshman team, Madeline Gorzka (2017) and Gabrielle Cleaveland (2018).


Off the field, Coach Lively has created a culture of academic success for the Bobcat Lacrosse team. In her four seasons as the head coach of Wesleyan Lacrosse, Lively has had 21 student-athletes receive All-MEC Academic Team honors and 24 student-athletes achieve MEC Commissioner's Honor Roll. In 2019, Wesleyan led all lacrosse teams from the Mountain East Conference with 12 LAX athletes earning MEC academic honors.


Lively, a native of Buckhannon, W.Va., is an alumna of West Virginia Wesleyan College. Lively received her bachelor's degree in Elementary Education in 2010, and earned her Master's in Education in Reading Specialization in 2011. Lively was a member of the Bobcat lacrosse team, playing as a universal defense/attack player during the 2008-2011 seasons.


While studying at Wesleyan, Lively began her coaching and leadership experience by creating and maintaining the local lacrosse team at Buckhannon-Upshur High School. While she was working on her degree and competing for Wesleyan, Lively was an assistant coach for the first lacrosse team at Buckhannon-Upshur in 2008. The Buccaneers were runners-up in the West Virginia state tournament that season. In 2010, she was named the head coach of the Buccaneer Lacrosse Team.


After graduation from Wesleyan, Lively coached at Buckhannon-Upshur High School from 2010-2016. Recognizing the need for expansion of the sport in the Buckhannon-Upshur area, Lively began a middle school lacrosse program in 2012. Lively served as a member of the Women's Lacrosse Board in West Virginia from 2013-2016 and became a representative for US Lacrosse.


In addition to her coaching duties at Wesleyan, Lively is a fifth-grade teacher at Rock Cave Elementary School, located in Upshur County.