Lacrosse teams seek players

For The Madison Press

It might seem fitting for the Pioneer Optimist Club of Plain City to pioneer a new sport within Plain City, especially one that real pioneers of the 19th century witnessed being played by Native Americans.

That sport is lacrosse. According to the U.S. Lacrosse Association, it is one of the fastest growing sports in the United States.

Lacrosse has been firmly rooted in central Ohio since the ’80s, but in one of the communities located in the rural outskirts of central Ohio, lacrosse is still a very new sport.

In fact, in the Plain City area, it is so new that it has to be compared to other sports in order for people to know and understand what it is.

The players, coaches and fans of the Pioneer Optimist Lacrosse Club have a better understanding of how the pioneering Wright Brothers must have felt.

This is because in a town that is firmly rooted in traditional spring sports like baseball, softball and youth soccer, trying to get lacrosse off the ground seems very similar to the struggle of getting that first airplane off the ground.

The name “lacrosse” was given to the game by French settlers who used the word “crosse” which means “curved stick” to describe what was used by the Native Americans who played the sport.

The sport has changed considerably since that time, and is now governed in the United States by U.S. Lacrosse.

At its core, like most sports, the idea is to pass a ball down the field with the intent of scoring a goal for points. The team with the most points wins the game.

The biggest difference in lacrosse is that the ball is passed to players using a stick with a basket (the crosse). The sport is played by both men and women, but each has its own very distinct rules.

Men’s and boy’s lacrosse is a contact sport that includes stick and body checking (limited at younger ages), while women’s and girl’s lacrosse is not a contact sport.

Both men’s and women’s lacrosse is a very fast game in which players must use fast feet and hands to juke and dodge opposing players on a field roughly the size of a football field (from end zone to end zone).

If lacrosse is to be compared to other sports, it has many similarities to ice hockey, but the game play of basketball is probably the closest to that of lacrosse (in general terms). In particular, the zone and man defensive strategies; the way the ball is passed around the outside; and the pick and roll play set ups are all similar between lacrosse and basketball.

“In the past two years of being involved in this sport, I have noticed that the kids that play basketball, hockey, or soccer take to lacrosse the quickest,” Plain City program director James Sintz said.

The Pioneer Optimist Lacrosse Club (formally Alder Lacrosse Club) is doing its part to help in the establishment of lacrosse within this area.

Now in its third year, the club still struggles just as hard to get enough players to field a team.

“Our first year, we got just enough fifth- and sixth-grade boys to field a team, while our girls team never got enough players,” Sintz said.

This year, the Pioneer Optimist Lacrosse Club has bumped up its marketing with fliers to all the local Jonathan Alder schools, placed yard signs, and put on free clinics.

However, with the close of this season’s registration window quickly approaching, the Pioneer Optimist Lacrosse Club is hoping it can pull in enough third- through eighth-grade boys and girls to fill out its team rosters.

“Games for the youth teams are on Sunday afternoons from mid-April through May,” Sintz said. “This means that many of the kids can play both soccer and lacrosse or even baseball and lacrosse.”

As the new director of the Pioneer Optimist Lacrosse Club, Sintz has little past experience with the sport.

“When my son asked to play three years ago, lacrosse was as new to me as it was to him,” he said. “I got a stick, so he and I could toss the ball back and forth.

“We were both learning at the same time and it was a lot of fun for both of us. I helped coach that first year and then joined an old timers league called ‘Old Dogs’ (age 35 and up), so I could get hands-on experience playing the sport, which I hoped would help me to be a better coach.”