One of her volunteers is away, so Terry Handerhan is doing it all.
Handerhan, the commissioner of the Bel Air Women’s Lacrosse League, places cones on the corners of the field minutes before game time, gathers the two teams, readies the game time stopwatch, flips the scoreboard back to zeroes and grabs her pen. There’s two chairs at the scorers table, but one of them is empty. Today, she’s the scorekeeper, stat compiler, time keeper and historian, maintaining one eye on the game while fielding questions about how, and why, this league that she’s played an integral role in assembling has persisted for more than three decades.
None of this gets old for Handerhan, 61, who was around for the league’s founding in 1992 and has led it through uncertain times and growth. The league, playing its 33rd season this summer, consists of five teams with players ranging from 14 years old to some in their 50s, most local but others coming from several counties and states. There’s high schoolers looking to stay fit over the summer, young adults looking to meet friends and mothers playing alongside their daughters.
They’re all here — Ewing Street Park nestled less than a mile away from Bel Air’s Main Street — for different reasons but drawn to the same unique opportunity.
“When I was in my 20s, there really wasn’t that much opportunity for women beyond college to play,” said Handerhan, a Catonsville native who played lacrosse at University of Richmond and now lives in Bel Air. “It was either softball or soccer. It’s just nice that there’s another option for ladies to continue to play.”
The Bel Air Women’s Lacrosse League has taken several forms since its founding. They’ve played in parks across Harford County, including Bel Air middle school for a time, but now call the private and quant Ewing Street Park home.
They play every Tuesday and Thursday night from the first week of June through the end of July — each team plays about 10 regular season games, weather permitting. A semifinal and championship game are slated for the end of the month. The league has played every year since its creation, even during the pandemic impacted summer of 2020.
Most players are local, but some come from Baltimore and Cecil counties. And a few make the half-hour drive from just over the Pennsylvania line. There’s nine mother-daughter pairs in the league, Handerhan said.
Amy Clough, 53, has played since the 1990s. She took a break to raise her two daughters. One of them, Aurora, 22, has played since her sophomore year at Fallston seven years ago. She used to watch her mom compete from the sidelines. Now, they share the field.
“That was pretty much me,” Aurora said, pointing to a group of kids playing nearby. “Then high school came around and she was like, ‘You should play.’”
“Everybody’s so forgiving out here,” Amy added. “Everyone’s friendly. That’s a huge draw for me. Everyone just wants to have a place to play. I’m just grateful that they let us — let me — at my age. It feels rare. It’s a rare thing.”
Cari Biscoe is one of Handerhan’s top volunteer helpers, arriving early to set up the field and managing other aspects of the league’s operations. Her two daughters, Addison, 18, and Molly, 16, play. Like Aurora Clough, they were once the younger children running around the sidelines watching mom.
“I like being able to play with her. I enjoy it. Sometimes she yells at us, but it’s fun,” Molly Biscoe, a rising junior at John Carroll who’s in her second summer with the league, said through a smile.
The league is not without its challenges. Participation has dipped in recent years as club leagues pluck talented high school and college-aged players away. The league once also fielded a junior level. There’s just one level now, but promising regrowth helped the league expand from four to five teams in 2025. Handerhan credits the Bel Air Recreation Committee’s increased social media presence for helping word spread.
“We’ve had our battles,” Cari Biscoe said. “But since COVID, we’ve been able to bring back that resilience.”
Handerhan is also some of the players’ biggest cheerleaders. Between answering questions and jotting who scored the latest goal, she’s shouting words of encouragement or coaching tips to players as they maneuver around defenders to attack the net.
She hasn’t taken the field herself for several years now, but Handerhan is still spending her Tuesday and Thursday nights here. She doesn’t see herself — or the Bel Air Women’s Lacrosse League — slowing down any time soon.
“So they don’t have to stop,” Handerhan said as she updates the score board and tells referees the time. “I just want to let it be known that you don’t have to stop after you have kids. You can come back and play with us. You can get married and come back and play with us. And when your kids get older, you come back and play with them.”
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