Gig Harbor Lacrosse growing in popularity as youth sport option
In these waning days of summer, many young athletes in the Peninsula School District will begin preparations for their upcoming sports seasons for high schools and middle schools.
Some will prepare for football, some are getting in shape for soccer, and others are stepping out of the confines of school and trying out for specialized club sports like basketball.
And for a select few, they will be preparing for what some see as a combination of all three of those sports: lacrosse.
The sport of lacrosse dates to Native American tribes playing a variation of the sport called “stickball” in the Northeastern part of the United States. These days, lacrosse is widely played across the nation, with growing popularity in the Gig Harbor area.
“You play lacrosse on a basically big field, like a soccer-sized field; there are two goals on each end,” said the president of Gig Harbor Lacrosse, Jennifer Caplinger. “Boys’ and girls’ lacrosse are a little bit different; the boys wear pads and helmets like football where the girls don’t wear pads at all. As they get older, the boys are making more contact with one another; and the girls are more like basketball where they are bodying each other up.”
Lacrosse is a sport that looks like hockey being played on turf. Where there are similar elements, like holding sticks and attacking the goal to score, a key difference is that the players are running with a rubber ball passing it to one another.
It has slowly gained popularity in the United States as well, spawning college programs and two professional leagues. It will even feature as a competitive sport in the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
As lacrosse has increased its exposure and expanded, so has the interest in the sport here in Gig Harbor.
“Each year is a little bit different, and I think as a whole, lacrosse is still growing in our area,” Caplinger said. “It’s one of those sports that is kind of word of mouth, but once people find it, they [are excited]. Our constant battle is trying to get the word out, but we have had a great couple of years in the past few years in terms of growth.”
Gig Harbor Lacrosse currently supports both boys’ and girls’ teams as young as third grade. The way the age groups are split up is that they pair players in the 3rd/4th grade, 5th/6th grade, and 7th/8th grade.
However, the boys’ teams in the GHLAX feeds into Gig Harbor High School where those athletes compete as a club sport.
The club also is the only one in the area that offers a girls team through the 8th grade. However, there is not a dedicated girls team in either Gig Harbor or Peninsula High Schools, so they play as a combined team for the high school-aged girls.
There has been such a substantial increase in the number of players in the league lately that Gig Harbor Lacrosse has been able to add a second team to every age group. Instead of three teams, there are now six.
“There is a continuous steady growth, but not a booming trajectory of growth that we can’t keep up with,” Caplinger said. “For us, we are a small club with very few volunteers, so getting the word out is always a challenge. Kids will sign up for soccer and baseball, so you sort of miss out on an opportunity to get a player into one of our clinics to gauge their interest… It’s definitely a growing sport and gaining popularity.”
One of the clinics that GHLAX puts on is a youth program running from September to October called Fall Ball. For about six Sundays starting Sept. 12, kids ranging from first to eighth grade can register to learn and hone their lacrosse skills.
Not only will they be coached by the volunteers who coach in the program already, but current high school players also give their time to teach young and new players.
It helps get families into the idea of lacrosse, and these clinics benefit perspective players in terms of getting a feel for the sport.
“It’s skills and drills. They teach fundamentals. There are fun games that are age-appropriate,” Caplinger said. “On the boys’ side, we separate out players who are trying it out. So, they are in a non-contact group. They have a stick, they have a mouthguard, but they don’t have any pads. And they play with a softball approved for practices. The younger kids and new ones are separated off doing the fundamentals and it goes up from there.”
Of course, like the rain clouds famous in the Pacific Northwest, COVID-19 is also hanging over the season ahead of GHLAX.
Normally, the lacrosse season starts in the spring and lasts between 10 and 12 weeks. However in 2020, the boys got two games in and had to call the season after everything was shut down. The girls did not even get a chance to play their first game.
In 2021, GHLAX did everything it could to follow the health and safety protocols put in place by the WIAA, school districts, Department of Health, and Pierce County. That included masks on while playing, daily health screenings, and temperature checks.
“We followed all the guidelines we needed to follow to get back to practicing,” Caplinger said. “We didn’t have any COVID associated with play, there were no COVID transmissions at any of our things. That was all great, but now we are just keeping an eye out to see what we are going to be required to do.”
Registration for Fall Ball is open at www.gigharborlacrosse.com.