In my opinion, you should play lacrosse this spring for several reasons. But for starters, let’s explain the lacrosse setup here at ERHS. If you made the team, you would play for MER if you go to East Rockaway High School. MER is the Malverne and East Rockaway combined team. There are about 10-12 games a season (home and away). For MER, Malverne is home and East Rockaway is home so you have 2 home fields. Some information about the team is that we have had really successful years in the past, and then during others, we’ve struggled to find our pacing. At the JV level there are no playoffs, but once you reach eleventh grade, you are heading for the New York State Championship.
Lacrosse is a demanding physical sport, so you need to be competitive and confident. Every day after school, you will hop on a bus and go straight to practice. Once at practice, you will work on skills that you would do in a game and you run plays. If you played middle school lacrosse, you should already be familiar with some of the plays, so that would be an advantage to you and you could succeed higher than others. You’ll need to have the following items to play for our school: a helmet, gloves, shoulder pads, cleats, elbow pads, and a stick. This equipment is given out by the school if you do not already have it. The only things that are not given are a stick and cleats.
At the JV level, if you are showing that you are really good at your position and you have earned good grades in school, you can be pulled up to the varsity level and play with older kids. Speaking of good grades, you need to be on top of your game academically. If you are failing more than one class, then you are on probation, which means you need to get a form signed by the teachers of the classes you are failing, and if they do not sign it then you can not play. If you have failed more than 3 classes, then you can not play until your grades go back up to passing. Your attendance matters too. If you are not in the school on any given day, you can not participate in practice or even a game that day.
If you find yourself really loving lacrosse (and if your grades are good), colleges may start looking for you. They will look at how you play in the game, they will see your key moves and if they like them, and if they think you are good, they could send you an offer to their college to play lacrosse.
Overall, it’s an amazing experience even with all of the hard work. If you are on the fence, consider coming to interest meetings at the start of the spring season to find out more.
