Mary Kate Casey always dreamed of playing college ball.
In that dream, though, she was dribbling a basketball, not using a stick with a shaped net pocket to catch and throw a 5-ounce solid rubber yellow ball.
If you had mentioned lacrosse to her when she enrolled at Loyola Academy, she likely would have thought you meant a western Wisconsin city, not the game American Indians played centuries ago.
“I never really knew what the sport was,” she said. “I thought it was just a little plastic stick you played with when you were younger.”
Casey knows better now. The senior became a basketball star at Loyola, but despite starting from scratch, she has become a lacrosse standout as well.
She currently plays for a Ramblers team ranked 27th in the country in the laxpower.com high school girls lacrosse poll. Next year she will play for Northwestern, the No. 1-ranked college women’s team in the country.
Casey reflects a nationwide boom in lacrosse that is gender-blind, extends from kids through collegians and has strayed far from its roots as an overwhelmingly East Coast pursuit.
Based on National Federation of State High School Associations figures, about 100,000 students play high school lacrosse, almost twice the number who participated five years ago.
The sport has pro leagues and mushrooming TV exposure. The latest Sports Illustrated devotes a nine-page story to the lacrosse explosion.
“It’s coming,” Pete Collins, New Trier’s girls coach and president of the Illinois High School Women’s Lacrosse Association, said of his sport. “It’s not going away.”
The Illinois High School Association does not conduct a state series in boys or girls lacrosse, but expect that to change. Right now the IHSA lists lacrosse as an “emerging sport,” which means the association is tracking participation toward the day it may become a full-fledged activity.
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The IHSA Board of Directors likely would consider implementing a state tournament in girls or boys lacrosse when either one’s participation reaches 75 varsity teams, or 10 percent of the IHSA’s membership.
Schools currently have registered 35 boys teams and 25 girls teams–all from the Chicago area–on the IHSA’s emerging sports list, though each gender has a few more schools participating than that, with more on the way.
“Every year three, four, five more are coming in,” said Collins, noting that in 1998, the IHSWLA’s inaugural year, just seven high schools had girls lacrosse teams.
Some schools, he said, now have up to 90 students playing on varsity, junior varsity and freshman teams.
Boys high school teams play in the Illinois High School Lacrosse Association, which lists 41 teams on its Web site.
High school athletic departments fully sponsor some teams. Others depend on outside funding and administration.
Even to a first-time observer, it’s quickly apparent what all this lacrosse fuss is about. A game, which takes only about an hour, is part sprint, part soccer and part basketball on grass, with plenty of fast breaks amid the screening, cutting and passing.
Women’s lacrosse is a non-contact game. The only protective equipment women–other than goalies–use is goggles and mouth guards.
Body checking is OK in guys lacrosse, which gets extremely physical. Players must wear helmets and shoulder pads.
“The girls game is such a different game,” Loyola coach John Dwyer said. “It really puts a premium and emphasis on your skill set and speed.”
Loyola has performed well against strong out-of-state opponents even though most of its players enter school with no lacrosse experience.
“We seem to be able to attract many of the better athletes in the school,” said Dwyer, whose players include his sophomore daughter, Kathleen. “We’re starting to get more kids who have played lacrosse, but there’s still a spot in our program for kids who never played if they’re athletic, competitive and fast.”
That would describe Casey, who has used the attitude and footwork she learned in basketball to her lacrosse advantage.
“She got good in a hurry because she’s very athletic, and the skill set she had in basketball fit so nicely,” Dwyer said. “She has a huge upside.”
Casey has played basketball year-round since she was a 5th-grader but has grown to love lacrosse as much as she does hoops.
“It’s a constant thrill,” she said of a lacrosse game. “I run my heart out.
“I just play to play. I love the sport . . . everything about it.”
That made her decision whether to pursue basketball or lacrosse in college a difficult one. She had offers to play basketball, but her possibilities, especially academically, seemed better in lacrosse, and she signed a letter of intent with Northwestern last November.
“Northwestern is the best fit,” said Casey, who has a partial scholarship. “My dream was to play college basketball, but it ended up lacrosse is taking me further.”
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