This Maine high school sport continues northward expansion

[Tom Nolette]

Bangor High considers varsity lacrosse for next season

... Bangor High School could be adding a boys and girls varsity lacrosse program next season.

The new program was included in the district’s proposed fiscal 2018 budget, which was introduced by Superintendent Betsy Webb during a school committee meeting Wednesday night. The proposed budget also eliminated the school’s freshman sports programs, which Webb said had low participation and high travel costs since the teams they often competed against are located in southern Maine.

The school had been offering the sport at the club level the past four years with good participation, prompting the proposal to add varsity teams.

http://bangordailynews.com/2017/03/23/s ... xt-season/

[Tom Nolette]

This Maine high school sport continues northward expansion

...“If the demand’s there you really feel like you ought to do it if that’s what the kids want,” said Utterback.

Utterback said the plan is for boys lacrosse to be offered initially at the subvarsity level in great part due to the ages of the potential core group of players next year.

“The concern would be obviously that if the group we have right now is primarily eighth-graders this year and those are the seasoned players who would be ninth-graders in our building next year,” he said, “you certainly would want to put them in age-appropriate competition and then see how that works out and see how many upperclassmen join in.”

Student interest in a high school girls lacrosse program at Brewer hasn’t reached the boys’ level yet.

“Once we start feeling demand and interest from the girls side we’ll certainly do the right thing as far as that goes,” Utterback said. “Right now we have extreme popularity in our track and tennis programs and the softball numbers are coming back up to where they used to be.”

http://bangordailynews.com/2017/04/11/s ... expansion/

[Tom Nolette]

Youth lacrosse finally arrives in Aroostook County

... “It’s one of those things where you make promises to your children and you try to teach them to follow through and stick to their guns and do what they say,” said Ken Ervin. “They were asking, ‘What about lacrosse? What about lacrosse?’”

Northern Maine Lacrosse was awarded a grant through US Lacrosse in April 2016 that provided 30 “soft” lacrosse sticks and 30 “soft” lacrosse balls, equipment similar to what normally is used in physical education classes.

Ervin then offered an introductory lacrosse class in Houlton last July that attracted 23 boys and girls, leading to weekly clinics.

He successfully applied for another US Lacrosse grant last fall that supplied up to 20 girls lacrosse sticks and protective eye goggles as well as US Lacrosse memberships, though a similar grant for boys equipment was denied.

http://bangordailynews.com/2017/04/11/s ... ok-county/