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Thursday, March 20, 2008
Lacrosse in NWA?
Western Arkansas, AR
By: Bob Kelly
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Photo(s) By: submitted
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Lacrosse is an old sport that's breaking new ground in Bentonville with programs underway from fifth grade to the high school leve
The sport itself goes back to the days of Native American Indians and is played in an organized fashion in all parts of this country. Johns Hopkins, Syracuse, Maryland, Towson State and Hobart College have long been bastions of the sport, turning out hundreds of collegiate All-Americans over the years. Now the sport is being played in Northwest Arkansas, albeit on a club level at present.
It’s Lacrosse and it’s found a home here, with programs already underway for fifth-eighth graders and a high school age club team, all playing under the Northwest Arkansas Lacrosse Club banner through the auspices of the Northwest ArkansasYMCA.
Interestingly enough, the high-school age team has players from Rogers, Har-Ber, Russellville, Huntsville, Benton County School of the Arts and Bentonville High Schools. School rivalries take the back seat during lacrosse practice, as players learn more about the game and their positions.
“It’s been an interesting year,” coach Vera McMurrin says of the progress made with the teams. “We started with a couple of boys who had played before, and more have turned out and continue to join us. We now have about 22 players on the high school age team practicing twice a week at Old Tiger Stadium. Many of the boys on the team didn’t have any experience and we have had to teach them both the game – and the positions within the game.”
Interest in the team has also resulted in parents who played the game either at the high school or collegiate level stepping forward and serving as volunteer coaches with the two groups. McMurrin has moved from coach to programadministrator while KevinMartin and Rich Pauman Sr. share coaching duties with the high school age group. Mike Welling and Bart Warfield are the volunteer coaches for the younger team.
“All of our games are away games right now,” McMurrin said. “We play in Tulsa, Rockwell, Texas and Republic, Mo., where we play two teams each trip. Our goal is to build a larger base, to eventually generate interest in high schools to play lacrosse and to build a base for girls’ teams as well.”
Rich Pauman Jr., a sophomore at Bentonville, played in Pennsylvania before arriving in Northwest Arkansas. He’s joined by Trey Whistle, a senior at Har-Ber who played two years of Florida high school lacrosse in the highest classification. He was a defenseman, but has been shifted to attack with the NW Arkansas Knights. Justin Eckes, a sophomore at Bentonville, brought experience with him from Colorado. Three other Bentonville players who are regulars on the team are Mason McClelland, a sophomore midfielder and defensemen Bryan Collum and Colin Black. Collum is a sophomore and Black a freshman.
“We have had quite a bit of assistance from the University of Arkansas,” McMurrin noted. “They have been very helpful to us, holding clinics and doing other things to help. They want our club to succeed because they hope in the future to have our players feed their team, which right now is almost all from out-of-state.”
“It’s been quite a journey. We started with a notice in a newspaper and now have a club team that travels to other states to play. We hope to be able to host our own games soon and provide another area of competition and development for youngsters who want to learn to play lacrosse.”
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