Opponents often have trouble dealing with the Maynards

To the west of Berkshire County is New York's Capital District, where new high school lacrosse programs seem to come online each year and where the University at Albany men's team has gone to the NCAA Division 1 tournament four of the last five years.

To the east is the rest of the commonwealth, with 177 boys and 150 girls teams at the high school level, a UMass men's team that went to the NCAA championship game in 2006 and a professional men's team in Major League Lacrosse.

With all the interest in the sport, the question might not be whether the sport will achieve varsity status in the county's public high schools. It is what took so long for it to catch on in the Berkshires?

"It's funny how certain pockets of certain states for whatever reason in some sports -- it could be baseball, football or lacrosse -- don't have that grassroots organization for whatever reason," Williams College men's coach George McCormack said recently. "For a long time, we didn't have that organization in Berkshire County that would allow us to have feeder programs into the high school level."

The key word there is "didn't." These days, the sport of lacrosse is alive and well and very

much on its way to varsity recognition for boys and girls at a half dozen of the county's public schools.

This spring, once again, the St. Joe's boys are the only county laxers competing in the MIAA, but the Crusaders will not be alone for long, the sport's proponents say.

"It's come down to who's ready to do it in 2009 and who is looking to 2010," Berkshire County Lacrosse Association President Jeff Stripp said. "What we've heard from people on the (school) boards is it's going to happen. The larger question is timing."

This time last year, the BCLA was gearing up for a season that ended in its first-ever county championship, a boys game won by Lee over Mount Greylock. This year, the boys title game will be repeated and there will be a girls championship decided as well.

That is because in addition to the six boys club teams (Mount Greylock, Lee, Taconic, Pittsfield, Northern Berkshire and Central Berkshire), the BCLA now features five girls squads (Mount Greylock, Pittsfield, Southern Berkshire, Central Berkshire and Northern Berkshire).

The two Northern Berkshire teams draw players from McCann Tech and Hoosac Valley High School, where athletic director Dan Caritey said varsity status could come as soon as 2010.

"Interest in lacrosse has been great," Caritey said. "It's the second year for the boys program, and they had about 24 kids out. It's the first year for the girls team, and there are 19 girls out at this time. We're kind of in one of those wait and see patterns to see how everything shakes out. We wanted to see the kind of interest involved and how it's going to affect a variety of sports."

Numbers game

Not everyone is jumping for joy about the emergence of lacrosse as the "next big thing" in Berkshire County high school sports.

Stripp, a two-time all-America lacrosse player at Williams College, is justifiably proud of the fact that the BCLA has grown from 180 players in 2007 to about 300 this spring.

But not all of those student-athletes were sitting on their hands or working part-time jobs last spring. Some of them played other sports at their respective high schools and left holes on their former teams' rosters.

"If you look at team sports, there are more numbers involved with team sports in the spring than any other season," Greylock girls' track and field coach Brian Gill said. "In the fall, cross country needs seven, and you can run. In the winter, basketball isn't a 'numbers' sport, and neither is skiing.

"In the spring, you have baseball, lacrosse and track and field, all of which require numbers. We're scrambling for kids already. You look at our boys team, and the direction it's going in terms of numbers, and I'm worried."

According to participation data submitted by Mount Greylock to the MIAA, the Mounties had 37 boys in outdoor track last spring. This year, boys' track coach Kent Lemme says he has about 22 boys on the roster, a drop of just more than 40 percent.

Caritey said early indications are lacrosse is having an effect on boys' and girls' teams at Hoosac. He said each of the Hurricanes' track teams has about 10 fewer participants, and the junior varsity softball team, which normally has about 15 or 16 players, has 11 at last count.

"I'm thinking they've gone to lacrosse, but I can't pinpoint it," he said. "The young kids, the ninth graders ... I don't know if they were softball players. Most of the (boys) were who were football players definitely went out for track (in the past), and some of them have left track and gone to lacrosse."

Not surprisingly, Stripp has heard concerns -- and sometimes criticism -- from backers of other spring sports. But he said the fears are overstated.

"We've gone through our data from registration and cross-checked it with rosters from other teams," Stripp said. "The reality is we're not pulling away all the athletes and all the kids.

"Baseball has such a strong tradition and history throughout Berkshire County that it won't be hurt. At Greylock, I don't even know if we have a baseball player on the lacrosse team."

Stripp coaches the Mounties boys' team in addition to organizing the league. He said that rather than destroying other teams, lacrosse broadens the athletic participation rates across the board in high schools where it is offered.

"We're the new kid on the block, and change is not the easiest thing for everyone," Stripp said. "Perhaps, if a track kid or a softball kid leaves their respective sport, that opens up a roster spot for a kid who may have been cut."

Caritey, meanwhile, said there are only so many sports one school can offer in a given season.

"People think of Hoosac Valley as this big school, but we've got 462 kids," he said. "How many sports can we entertain and keep at the varsity level and be competitive?"

Stripp said that even if student-athletes are leaving other sports to go to lacrosse, it is not the result of lacrosse coaches "raiding" the other teams.

"Are we promoting the sport? Absolutely," he said. "But I don't think we're out there going door to door and recruiting."

A popular choice

Northern Berkshire/Hoosac Valley girls' coach Tammie Shafer is a recent convert to lacrosse herself. She is taking online tutorials offered by U.S. Lacrosse and getting technical assistance from assistant coach Maria Bartini, a former college player.

Shafer's enthusiasm for the sport is matched by that of her players.

"The turnout has been really good," she said. "Kids are finding out about it. I have a lot of girls coming to me and asking me about it. It's a fun game to play."

It can be a challenging game to pick up.

"There's a phase they go through, even the most talented kid, of awkwardness," Stripp said. "You see a little bit of frustration. ... I've seen really good athletes come out and be frustrated because they're just like everybody else. It's funny to watch, but once they get it, they're hooked."

It helps that some of the skills from other sports translate to the lacrosse field. The sport incorporates the running and field awareness of soccer with the picks and defensive switches of basketball. It just requires athletes to do all that running and make all those moves while catching, throwing and cradling a 2 1/2 inch rubber ball with a basket that measures about seven inches wide.

"No one on my team has had any lacrosse experience," Shafer said. "They're all brand new. ... We started practice on March 17, and in that short time I'm amazed at how far the girls have come along."

Shafer said she asked her players, and many of them had experience playing soccer or basketball. Significantly, less than half of her 18-girl roster had experience in a spring sport at the high school level.

"Ten of the girls didn't play a spring sport, so that's 10 who are now doing something in the spring, which is good," Shafer said.

Shafer said she expects her team to be competitive in the league, where most of the other girls teams are in the same boat.

In fact, the only BCLA girls team with any history is Greylock, which for a change will not have to fill out its schedule mostly with schools from outside the county. Eight of the Mounties' games will be against BCLA teams (a home-and-home series with each other four teams), but Mount Greylock also will play Miss Hall's School from Pittsfield, Stratton Mountain of Vermont and the Hoosac School of New York.

Speaking of scheduling, the county's lone MIAA varsity program is looking forward to getting some local competition. This year's schedule for the St. Joe's boys includes road trips to Springfield, Agawam, Northampton and South Hadley.

"We're hoping that we can have a county league," St. Joe's AD Lori Cote said. "From a scheduling standpoint, it would be easier."

Stripp has a message: Help is on the way.

"If '09 doesn't pan out (for varsity status), I'm relatively certain that 2010 will," Stripp said. "Then again, you're talking to a biased guy."