JJ SAYS: Girls also play good lacrosse

Girls lacrosse has grown from only one high school team to three, including a league leader.|

A couple of weeks ago after I wrote about the Battle for the Paddle and sundry other things tabou lacrosse, I received a nice electronic comment from a reader who politely suggested that I had overlooked half the local lacrosse story - the half about girls lacrosse.

The letter writer is right. If boys lacrosse has had a long road to acceptability, imagine how difficult it has been for girls teams.

I mentioned how attractive lacrosse is to boys because of its fast pace, continuous movement and physicality. Those same attributes are an attraction for many girl athletes.

The rules of the girls game have been modified to make it slightly less physical, but there is still plenty of contact and it is just as fast and exciting as the boys game.

It has not been easy for the girls game to get established. When the game was first introduced in Petaluma, the few girls interested played with the boys. Pretty quickly little girls could be seen running around Lucchesi park and other fields proudly carrying their sticks.

As the popularity of the sport grew, more and more girls teams were added, but when proponents began pushing to make lacrosse an official school sport, it was initially proposed as a boys sport. In fact, as the letter writer points out, the year before the sport was officially added to the school roster, Petaluma and Casa Grande had to combine players and field just one club team, primarily because there weren’t enough Petaluma players for a full team.

Things have changed. Now there are not only teams at Casa Grande and Petaluma, but also at St. Vincent which does not have a boys team. There are 18 girls on the Casa Grande roster, including several who are the first to play four full years on an official school varsity team.

Casa Grande is unbeaten in the North Bay Girls Lacrosse League which includes teams from Cardinal Newman, Windsor, Petaluma, Sonoma Academy, Washington and Rancho Cotate. The Lady Gauchos are 4-0-1, with a tie against Windsor, while Petaluma is 3-3.

The first time Petaluma and Casa played, Casa prevailed, 12-9. They meet again Thursday night at Casa Grande (7 p.m. faceoff).

Incidentally, Petaluma’s under-15 youth team played undefeated to the championship of its youth league.

There are a couple of conclusions to be drawn from all this.

First: Lacrosse is a strongly appealing sport. It is fun to play and fun to watch.

Second: Girls love a good sport just as much as the boys.

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