Sometimes, Notre Dame lacrosse coach Jimmy Marshall thinks he’s an evangelist for his sport.
“I do in a way just because I’ve been involved with it so long,” Marshall said. “I’m always trying to promote it through basically evidence.”
Girls and boys lacrosse and boys volleyball are the newest of the 14 sports and six sport-activities the Kentucky High School Athletic Association sanctions.
Marshall wishes more people were interested in coaching.
“Finding coaches is a near impossible task because you can’t find too many people that know the girls game,” he said.
Dayton boys volleyball coach Haley Turner had to fight against inaccurate perceptions when she looked for players.
“It is a stigma that volleyball is a girl’s sport, so it was a little bit harder,” Turner said Wednesday. “But most of the guys already kind of enjoyed, and then I just got them to get some of their friends to do it as well.”
Centuries of history
Lacrosse has a centuries-old history. In his 1970 book “Lacrosse,” Howard Liss wrote the game was first played by Native American communities as early as the 11th century.
Some of the boys and girls rules are similar: defenders and attackers must stay in their respective zones; midfielders can go anywhere; games are played in four 10-minute quarters, and the teams switch ends after each quarter; a zone behind the goal called the “X”; only four players may use the six-foot-long defender sticks; offside rules when too many players are in the offensive and defensive sides; .
There are also differences:
• The girls field dimensions are 120 yards x 60 yards, while the boys field measures 120 x 65.
• The girls have 12 girls on the field (a goalkeeper, four defenders, three midfielders, and four attackers, while the boys play with 10 (keeper and three defenders, midfielders and attackers).
• Boys wear helmets, gloves and shoulder pads, while girls, except for the goalkeeper, who wears a helmet and gloves, wear only protective goggles. Contact rules are stricter for girls, at least until the game has been around for a few years.
• On face-offs at midfield after every goal, girls stand up and touch the ball with the back of their sticks’ webs, while the boys crouch.
The out-of-bounds rule is sometimes confusing. When a team that misses a shot on goal, whichever team is closest when the ball goes out retains possession switches if there’s no shot.
Ryle boys lacrosse coach Noah Reed said some of the rules hold the girls back.
“The women that I’ve talked to in the sport, they want the physicality,” Reed said. “But rule-wise, they’re just trying to keep people safe and really grow the game.”
Girls lacrosse
Cooper, Dixie Heights and Ryle also field teams.
Marshall is in his 11th season in Park Hills. The Pandas are 5-0 record – and a seven-game winning streak since last year, when lacrosse was not sanctioned.
Notre Dame has had lacrosse for at least 11 years. For years, Notre Dame played teams in Cincinnati and Louisville.
“We were the only program in Northern Kentucky with girls lacrosse when I got there,” Marshall said. “I don’t think we realized it would take this long to get other schools going with lacrosse … We’ve always had, I’ll say zero turnover. If we get girls to come out for the team, they stay.”
Senior midfielder Hannah Powers, who’s headed for Barton College in Wilson, North Carolina, leads Notre Dame with 24 goals going into Tuesday’s 10-7 win over Anderson, and senior midfielder Georgi Kirtley, who committed to Southern Connecticut State, has 13 goals and eight assists. Senior midfielder Andrea Carothers has five goals and a team-high nine assists.
Sophomore Madison Reinert leads Cooper (1-3) with 13 goals, and senior Samantha Sandefur has eight and 13 assists.
Sophomore Tori Sickmeier leads Ryle with 10 goals and four assists.
Dixie Heights opened its season with a 13-2 loss Monday to Edgewood (Trenton, Ohio). The Colonels play a home doubleheader against Princeton and Shelby County beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday.
Marshall is hopeful about lacrosse’s future; he said Notre Dame went from 18 players when he arrived to 70.
“If we can convince soccer players to give it a try, they stay,” Marshall said. “It’s a really fun sport, really action-packed, quick-moving sport.”
Boys lacrosse
Cooper, Covington Catholic, Dixie Heights, Ryle, St. Henry and Walton-Verona have boys teams.
Ask Ryle coach – and CovCath graduate – Noah Reed about his sport’s popularity. He’s brutally honest.
“Around here, it’s not very popular,” Reed said. “Interest in it ebbs and flows. As of right now, the interest is a little higher than it has been in years past.
“… It’s not slow and drawn out like baseball, and it’s not as low scoring as hockey, but it’s just as fast paced.”
Sophomore Jake Bailey leads Ryle (4-3) with 20 goals and 12 assists, junior Lane Rickey is next with 13 goals, and senior Bryson White has 12 goals and six assists.
Junior Kayden Durrett paces St. Henry (0-3) with eight goals. Defense has been a problem for the Crusaders – 45 goals allowed versus 13 scored.
Walton-Verona fell to 1-4 after Tuesday’s 10-2 loss at Great Crossing. The Bearcats have scored 14 goals and surrendered 62.
With 23 and 22 goals, respectively, Cooper’s (2-4) Eric Wong and Ephraim Turner lead Northern Kentucky; they both have 12 assists.
Like Cooper, CovCath is 1-4. Finn Maddox has nine of the Colonels’ 25 goals, and Gavin Brake has six scores. Jack Dusing has seven assists.
Dixie Heights (4-3) brings three double-figure scorers – Aiden Wood has 16 goals, and Brayden Brzygot and Eli Lawson have 13 apiece. Lawson has a team-high eight assists.
Boys volleyball
Ryle leads the field with a 7-0 record, Dayton is 6-2, Calvary Christian is 3-2, Walton-Verona is 1-2, and Scott is 1-4.
To Turner, boys volleyball is a chance for small schools to compete against larger programs – and fight another stigma.
“When it comes to bigger schools, we kind of have an idea that they got more athletes, they got a bigger choice to choose from, where in boys volleyball, you kind of never know what you’re going to get,” Turner said. “We’ve beat schools that are bigger than us and competed with schools that would have … probably been a blowout in every other sport.”
Marquel Kennedy leads Dayton with 21 kills and 12 blocks.
“He’s a great player,” Turner said. “He’s just very aggressive, eager to get to the ball, you know.”
Max Kidd’s 38 kills leads Ryle. Andrew Stropko is next with 35, and he has a team-high 48 assists.
Shawn Sinkhorn leads Walton-Verona with 35 kills, and Tristan Clifton has 44 assists.
Jett Hanks leads Scott with 18 kills and 24 assists.