Athletic director Golden Anderson says that if a sport does not exist on Carmel High School campus, it is most likely because not enough interest has been shown toward it and not enough people have committed in order to form a team.
As for girls’ lacrosse, some students, mostly current field hockey and soccer players, are now showing interest in having a girls’ lacrosse team at CHS. In fact, many of the varsity and junior varsity field hockey teams asked last week whether they would be interested in playing in lacrosse said they would.
“I have played before, and I think it is a very fun sport,” comments freshman Valentina Anea. “A girls’ team should be made!”
Some field hockey players, including sophomore Jessica Purdom and senior Jilly Empey, used to play lacrosse for the Monterey Tribe Lacrosse Club. Empey played in seventh and eighth and joined again last year along with Purdom.
The Monterey Tribe Lacrosse Club started in 2010 as part of the YMCA. The team was created when enough girls announced that they thought that lacrosse was fun and wanted to play.
Girls’ lacrosse is the fastest growing girls’ sport at the high school and college level with a rate of 31.2 percent over the past five years, according to Dave Bethes, member of Tribe. If this pattern continues, athletes can expect to see a girls’ lacrosse team materialize at CHS in the next few years.
In order for that to come through, there are a few steps that need to take place.
The first step in forming any sports team is to gather enough interest. If the excitement of a new sport travels across the school and is apparent to teachers and staff, a wider announcement would be made.
“Ordinarily we would say, all right, let’s gauge the interest,” Anderson explains. “If you’d be interested in playing girls’ lacrosse…come to an informational meeting.”
This meeting would allow the coach to get a sense of the number of students excited enough and dedicated. Depending on how many students show up to the meeting, the following step would be finding out what local league teams exist that would be possible competitors.
If the student interest for girls’ lacrosse remains at the same level or increases, the next time students hear an announcement about a lunch meeting, they’ll want to be there if they want a team to materialize.
-Julia Sudol
