Local lacrosse club hosting open house, inviting you to be part of ‘fastest-growing game in the U.S.’
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IDAHO FALLS – Lacrosse is a sport that’s quickly gaining in popularity nationwide and a local club is inviting you to learn more about it ahead of its upcoming spring season.
The Idaho Falls Lacrosse Club is hosting an open house Wednesday, Feb. 3 at Taylorview Junior High at 350 Castlerock Lane in Idaho Falls. The event will start at 6:30 p.m.
“This is a sport that isn’t familiar to a lot of local parents,” Club board member Coleen Niemann tells EastIdahoNews.com. “It will have all the basic information about practices and game (schedule), but we’ll also introduce parents to the game.”
Lacrosse is often described as a combination of soccer and hockey. It’s a team sport played outside with a stick and a hard rubber ball a little smaller than a baseball. A net at the end of the stick functions similarly to a baseball mitt. The object of the game is to throw or kick the ball through a goal on the opposite side of the field.
“The field is larger in length and width than a football field,” says Niemann. “There is a centerline, just like there is in hockey or soccer and a faceoff (at the beginning of the game). Certain players can travel the whole length of the field and certain players can only stay on the offensive or defensive side of the midline.”
See how it works in the video player above.
Lacrosse is the oldest sport in America, with origins dating back to the 1600s.
“It was first played by Native Americans on the east coast. It was a to-the-death sport,” Niemann says. ”
It’s now the fastest-growing game in the U.S., according to SportsPlanningGuide.com. It’s been sanctioned as a high school sport in 22 states. Inside Lacrosse reports the number of men’s and women’s college teams more than doubled between 2003 and 2018.
Though it’s not currently a sanctioned high school sport in eastern Idaho, local clubs like the Idaho Falls Lacrosse Club helped popularize it here.
Dr. Brett Mooso, who owns Mooso Orthodontics in Idaho Falls and Rigby, formed the Idaho Falls Lacrosse club in 2002.
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“He was very active in the hockey club and wanted to have a sport that hockey players could play in the off-season … that had some similarities to it,” Niemann says.
It started with a high school team initially but has grown to include a total of eight teams for kids in kindergarten through high school.
Niemann’s son, Cole, has been involved with the club for the last nine years.
“My friends all did it so I wanted to be with them,” Cole says.
But it’s become a sport he deeply loves and he says it’s given him some amazing opportunities through the years.
“My freshman year (in 2018), we went to the state championship in Boise and lost by one point,” Cole says. “The season was canceled last year (due to the COVID-19 pandemic), but (during) my sophomore year two years ago, we ended up at quarter-finals,” says Cole.
Cole is now a senior and will be graduating in May before heading to Alliance, Ohio to play for the University of Mount Union Raiders.
Niemann’s other son, Christopher, who is 14, is also a member of the lacrosse club.
“We see a lot of the same families because once a kid gets hooked, they keep playing and then their siblings play and now that’s why we’re really excited to continue to keep offering more and more teams and unique experiences,” Coleen says.
Niemann says the club’s future goals include growing the girls’ teams and she’s hoping to recruit new players at Wednesday’s open house and more parents who want to coach.
“This a pure joy to me,” Niemann says. “I love this. It’s been good for our family and I really want people to be aware that such a program exists and for kids to be open to this new sport that may be unfamiliar to their parents but is certainly very common in other parts of the country.”
Registration is currently open for the high school boys and girls teams, along with junior high boys and girls and second through sixth-grade co-ed teams.
More information will be presented at the open house. To register or learn more, visit the website.