Lacrosse in Sacramento: The weak need not apply

April 25, 1:33 AMSacramento Sports ExaminerPatrick Ibarra

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Kent Mueller of Granite Bay High. (Photo courtesy Greg Ashman

I covered a high school lacrosse match for the first time recently and was left with one question: Why the heck am I not covering this on a regular basis?

The sport is amazing. I just didn’t know it until I was close enough to hear pads crack like a firecracker in July.

Lacrosse is full of butt kickers, bottom line. While I’d seen colleges compete against one another on ESPN in NCAA tournaments, I’d never witnessed the sport in person, so I didn’t develop an appreciation I now profoundly have. On television, I saw finesse and skillful passing between teammates, and long-distance rocket shots zoom past defenders. It was like a chess match with soccer rules, and the better organized team won.

Not at the high school level. While the better coaches had his or her players trained to run plays as well, it came down to individual toughness more often than not for a score. High school lacrosse seemed more like a series of goal line stands in football than anything resembling soccer. The defense knocked down anyone it had to, tackling an attacker trying to score, and the offense played smashmouth front and center to get in the end zone.

I’d call it a “manly sport,” because of the sheer toughness it takes to play the game, but the girls’ teams battle just as hard as the boys. In fact, get a girl on a mission to score – or stop someone from scoring for that matter – and you’ll see the most aggressive hit a high school senior can make on another human being. Without football as an option really for local girls, lacrosse gives the smashers of the area an avenue to beat each other up. It’s a fun thing to watch.

An April 14 battle between Granite Bay High and the Oak Ridge Trojans boys' teams saw two of the area's best high school teams battle. In a sport historically participated in by local athletes on club teams, these two schools continued to build a tradition of excellence with classmates, not nearby ringers. That's another story in itself, as lacrosse fans hope to see a continued growth in the sport's popularity, one that could eventually have all big high schools fielding their own teams. I'll say one thing, if the kids continue to pour it all out on the field like they did when I was on hand, they shouldn't have too much trouble growing. If I was 18 again, I'd suit up tomorrow.

Sports like this need more fans. More fans will lead to higher turnouts for tryouts. Fall football players can play lacrosse in the spring. Get half of a school's football roster on a lacrosse field and any school is bound to want to field a team, right? Get enough kids interested at a school and the district will have to pay attention.

And it should, because the sport is beautifully rugged. There’s something alluring about a player catching a rubber ball launched three-fourths of the field by a goalie in the small net at the end of his stick and juking two defenders to get within striking distance, only to see him have to run through a defensive double team to get a shot off. I saw one team’s captain and star player – playing injured I found out after the game – get knocked down by two guys, get back up without losing the ball, run through another guy shoulder to shoulder and fire a shot right inside the goalie’s box for a score. That’s how you earn points, folks.

Several times I cringed as a defender slammed his stick down on the forearms of the player with the ball, making a bone-shattering sound loud enough to make any player’s mother fight back tears. These kids took hits running backs might not get up from and jumped to their feet like they never happened.

These matches defined toughness for the casual viewer in me, and I was officially a fan after only two quarters of play. Keep it up, ladies and gentlemen, the sport has made you warriors, and that’s something any sports fan can appreciate.

Interested in the warrior's sport yet? Find out more about the Northern California Junior Lacrosse Association and US Lacrosse.

Danielle Trapani, left, and Grant Sanders, right, of Oak Ridge. (Photos courtesy Greg Ashman)

For more info: Visit photographer Greg Ashman's website  for a wealth of photos of local athletes.