Everyone was handed a lacrosse stick in the Yarusso family at a very young age. Michael Yarusso, the patriarch, spent his entire life playing the game, and he has bequeathed his passion for lacrosse to his five daughters.
One of them was the middle child, Kara Yarusso.
A multi-sport athlete growing up in West Deptford, New Jersey, she found the sport to be something fun that bonded her closer to her family and her sisters. Kara ended up playing both lacrosse and field hockey at West Deptford High School, the same place where her father coached the boys’ team. However, when decision time came around, she had to choose between playing collegiate lacrosse or field hockey.
While it was a tough decision, Yarusso ultimately stuck with the family’s passion and chose lacrosse.
“I recognized that I liked field hockey in high school because we were so successful, whereas I knew that I loved lacrosse for the sport and what it meant to me,” Yarusso said.
So, Yarusso found Stevenson. The program, led by head coach Kathy Raley, allowed for Yarusso to enjoy lacrosse to the degree that she wanted to while thriving in success and allowing time to focus on other aspects of her life.
“I wanted to play a sport that I loved, but I didn’t want the sport that I loved to become my life,” Yarusso said. “I didn’t have to be doing lacrosse 24 hours a day to be getting better and to be on a highly-committed team.”
She committed prior to the 2020-2021 school year as a marketing major and then went on to spend the offseason working hard to improve her craft. She recalled going outside with her father to work on dodging and improving specific skills of the game. This, to her, was the difference maker in making the jump from high school to college.
“The transition from high school to college is the difference between being an athlete and being a lacrosse player,” Yarusso said. “A lot of athletes can thrive at a Division III level, but what sets you apart is when you’re not just an athlete. You become good at the [specific] skills [of the game].
Of course, all things life was up in the air during this time frame as the COVID-19 pandemic raged on. However, when the 2021 season finally came around, Raley wasted no time in playing her. She got into 14 games, starting 13 of them and scoring 26 goals.
According to Yarusso, the early playing time was a big asset for her and the rest of her career.
“I got to learn from other experienced players and I got really close with that grade,” Yarusso said.
She cited fellow midfielder Kaitlyn “Koz” Kozlowski and attacker Caroline Murphy as her main influences in her early years as a Mustang.
Few knew it at the time but when Yarusso stepped foot onto Mustang Stadium for the first time, one of the most historical lacrosse careers in school history had begun.
From 2021 to 2024, Yarusso collected a list full of accolades including two All-Middle Atlantic Conference First Team honors, a MAC Commonwealth Midfielder of the Year award, a USA Lacrosse Second-Team All-American selection, and a spot on the 2024 MAC Academic Honor Roll. She amassed 168 goals, 211 points, and 43 assists while putting up a single season-best .557 shot percentage in 2024.
One of her favorite seasons was in 2022. The Mustangs went 13-8 overall (6-2 in conference) and reached the MAC Commonwealth Championship Game after edging out Messiah in the semifinals 13-8. Though they fell to York in the championship game, the team still received an NCAA tournament bid and ended up going 1-1 in the tournament, manhandling Meredith College 17-7 in the tournament opener.
“We were a really good team that year, and that was one of my favorite years,” Yarusso said. “Being able to get into [the NCAAs], I knew we deserved to be there and it was really nice to see the selection also saw the same thing and also saw that we deserved to be there.”
Yarusso concluded her undergraduate years at the conclusion of the 2024 season. As she walked the stage at graduation with her bachelor’s degree in accounting, everyone assumed that was the last to be seen of Number 16 at Stevenson University. She assumed the same thing, having been content with the career she had.
That was until she announced on social media that she was set to return for a fifth year of lacrosse while enrolled in Stevenson’s online masters program. She said that an eye-opening conversation with Kozlwoski and Murphy convinced her to play one more year.
“Caroline said to me ‘if you are thinking about doing it, then that means you want to do it,’” Yarusso said. “I wasn’t 100 percent sure if I was making the right decision. [But] I felt that she was right.”
The Mustangs went 12-7 (5-2 in conference) during the regular season and made it back to the MAC championship game, where they fell to 17-11 in a closely-contested game. Regardless, Yarusso is proud of her teammates for grinding through a tough season and rising above early season struggles.
“We definitely went through a rough patch right before conference [play], and then we finally got everyone back on board,” Yarusso said. “Then we were doing really well in the conference, and I was super proud of us.”
As the Mustangs and Yarusso competed for the MAC championship towards the end of the season, Yarusso was forced to square off against her own family on several occasions in crucial games. She defeated Widener University and her older sister, assistant coach Katherine Yarusso, 18-11 on April 27. In the MAC championship game, she spent her final minutes as a Mustang sharing the field with her younger sister, York attacker Krista Yarusso.
There are no hard feelings between the two after the hard-fought championship game, and their bond remains unbreakable.
“I’m super proud of [Krista]! She’s my little sister, so I have a soft spot for her,” Yarusso said. “When we are on the field together, we just goof off and laugh. We just try to make the most of those moments [together].”
For Yarusso herself, the 2025 season was one for the record books. appeared in all 19 games in her fifth year, scoring 63 goals with 22 assists, 85 points, and a .534 shot percentage. She shattered four program records and now sits alone at the top in all-time goals (231), points (296), games played (91), and draw controls (297). The next closest in goals is 66 goals away from Yarusso (Leah Warner, 168 goals).
If her final season proved anything, it is that she cemented her place in Stevenson history and is now bound for the Dick Watts Athletic Hall of Fame.
Yarusso was an offensive powerhouse, and it meant danger for the opposition every time she had the ball near the net. Her offensive approach may have seemed complex but to her, all she needed was confidence, opportunities to find open gaps in opponents’ mistakes, and nailing the small things.
“I try to nail that down [to the younger players] that if we are doing the motions correctly and if we are working as a team, then your time [to score goals] will come,” Yarusso said.
Yarusso is proud of what she accomplished as a player, but she is more proud of what she accomplished as a captain and leader for her team.
“I think that I am most proud of the impact I had on the people around me,” Yarusso said. “I just really enjoyed being able to help people become better people, and [I enjoyed helping] the team as a whole get confidence in themselves and pick each other up. It’s cool to see first years when they walk in the door and say how you’ve helped them gain confidence and become more out of their shell by the end of the year.”
Yarusso’s college playing career may be done, but she is not leaving the game entirely anytime soon. She plans on coaching a high school club team back home in West Deptford while playing on adult teams and tournaments with her sisters. She has a tournament planned with Krista at the summer’s end.
Yarusso now gets to carry on with her family what was started many years ago, and her desires in the sport have now all come to fruition. She has gotten everything she ever wanted out of her experience in lacrosse.
The game brought her closer to her loved ones, and it became the perfect getaway activity for her to embrace herself in, a place where no stressor could bother her.
“I never looked at lacrosse as my life,” Yarusso said. “I always wanted it to be something that I enjoyed as an outlet to stop thinking about things happening in my life.”
