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Mifflin County girls join boys with their own lacrosse club

LEWISTOWN — It’s a sport that isn’t new to the state or even to the Mid-Penn Conference, but lacrosse has been growing legs at Mifflin County High School.

Just last year, the school board approved a club team on the boys side, and many knew it wasn’t going to be long before a girls team would be assembled.

The club team was approved for this spring as the Huskies’ first game — seen as a scrimmage to school-sponsored opponents — was April 13 against Selinsgrove.

Of course, starting a new team and attempting to attract interest could be a challenge, but the biggest obstacle coach Theresa Lamont and others behind the charge have is funding.

“Club status is a nice way for a school to say ‘you know what? We’re going to give you some wings and see what you could do. We’ll give you a place to practice and we’ll take care of you while the kids are in school, but everything else is on you,'” Lamont said. “That sounds like a good idea until you see what the numbers are. To get a program going, it’s kind of costly.”

The Huskies will play six games in their inaugural year, and after some discussion, they decided it would be best to have all road games based on field conditions at home and the cost of accomodations — primarily referees.

Those six games are all against Selinsgrove, Mifflinburg and Danville with round trips costing close to $500. That doesn’t even go into the money players have to invest in themselves in terms of playing gear. To outfit a goalie with all new equipment costs close to $1,000.

Fortunately, Lamont has received a lot of help and the team has done well with fundraisers.

“We don’t have the barriers, cost wise,” she said.

Some of the money she has received won’t exactly go to the players on this year’s team as she looks to the program’s future and use that money towards a feeder system.

Right now, the number of players is at 17, but Lamont says she had to turn away a lot of eighth grade kids and is optimisic that bodes well for the future. It also doesn’t hurt that most of the kids on the team are freshmen and sophomores and will have more than one year of playing together.

“That is an awesome way to build a program,” she said. “They grow together a team and we don’t have to reteach to a massive amount of people. I would have loved for seniors to come out, but they didn’t and that’s okay. We have a really nice core of players that as a group are really going to develop.”

The game of lacrosse is much different for girls than boys. The girls’ stick pockets aren’t as deep. That’s because there is no contact in the game whereas, the boys’ game has a lot.

Girls teams also get to field 12 players while boys play 11 at a time. The girls play on a bigger field than the boys, and that’s one of the biggest reasons Lamont has opted to play games on the road where other schools have established teams and therefore have the playing fields to accommodate.

In the short term, the goal is to grow the game and give local people a new sport to watch. She wants interest to grow not only with kids looking for new outdoor interest, but get older people interested to potentially help with coaching.

“We want to get the word out because there are people who didn’t know we had lacrosse here. There are people who don’t know much about it, but that doesn’t mean they can’t coach or teach the game,” Lamont said. “Offensively, the game is a lot like basketball, but if someone understands soccer or field hockey, they bring a lot of field awareness, especially defensively.”

Another goal is for the team to remove it’s club team label and become a team sport. Right now, it’s baby steps for the Huskies as they play team from the Central Susquehanna League. If approved, they would be moved into the Mid-Penn Conference with the rest of Mifflin County’s sports. Lamont has turned down scrimmage opportunities with some of those schools, but in due time, would love to see how far the team has grown.

“I would hope that at the end of three years, we’d be able to apply to become a school sponsored sport,” Lamont said. “By that time, we would have success with our core group of girls who can show their personal growth, but also show some numbers with girls coming up. If we can show growth, I think a school district is willing to say, ‘Yeah, you’re showing that you have a viable program. You’re bringing about a good light in our district and this will help kids get to the next level,’ which is what we do. Athletics really do help kids get to the next level.”

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