AUBURN – It was only a matter of time.

After lacrosse moved into the area, first at St. Dom’s High School and then at Lewiston, it seemed like only a matter of time before Edward Little would follow suit. After fielding a girls’ club team last season, the Red Eddies have both boys and girls that will take the field in competition this season.

“The lacrosse players are different animals to begin with,” said volunteer head coach Tony Burgess. “They love the physical contact and the individuality associated with the sport. It’s great that there is a place here for them to participate in the sport that they like play.”

Many of Burgess’ players have played lacrosse before. Currently there is a youth lacrosse program run through the Lewiston Recreation Department that is open to both Auburn and Lewiston players. Many of Burgess’ players this season made their way through that system.

“We (Burgess and assistant Mike Courtemanche) both coached through that system, and we know a lot of the kids that play on both sides of the river,” said Burgess.

“It was only a matter of time before we all got teams. The sport is really growing around here.”

“Being able to come back and play lacrosse is great,” agreed EL’s Deklan McManus. “We’ve been without it for three years now, since we had to stop playing. We played in back yards and with a bunch of friends, but it wasn’t the same.”

Ladies first

Last year, the girls got things rolling, putting together a team with several fund-raisers, a push for new players and plenty of hard work. This season, the girls found an experienced coach in Jason Duchette, who was an assistant with the Lewiston program for two years. The pieces are finally starting to fall into place.

“Right now, all of the funding for the girls’ team comes from fund-raisers,” said Duchette. “We get no help from a boosters’ organization or from the school. In a way that makes it special, because it’s their team.”

After three years, a club team has the chance to go before the school board for approval as a varsity team.

Since the girls are one year ahead of the boys, they will become eligible first.

“Most of the team members are young,” said Duchette. “We have just five seniors on the team. They are a motivated bunch of girls and hopefully they’ll get the chance to see the varsity level soon.”

Growing pains

It hasn’t been an easy road for the Edward Little boys, either. The booster club at EL has helped defer the cost of uniforms and other expenses, but it’s still difficult to start anything new.

“The girls have done a fine job surviving against the odds,” said Burgess. “Now that they are off the ground and rolling, we can take a lot from what they’ve been able to do. We are pretty much separate, but we are still on the same team.”

For many of the first-time players on the boys’ side, the biggest hurdle was learning the rules and the equipment.

“Knowing what you needed to have for equipment and getting the right stuff was hard at first,” said EL player Tony Davis. “Gym time was also hard to get, being the new group around here.”

Both the girls and the boys will maintain a junior varsity schedule this season, although both Duchette and Burgess are looking for takers for a couple of varsity scrimmages.

“I think we can probably compete with a few varsity programs out there,” said Burgess. “Until we play them, I’m not sure that the boys will know that for sure. That in itself might be enough to motivate more people to join the program.”

“We’ve made it this far on our own,” added EL player Kathy Harder. “We want to win at least one game. that would be great for the program, to help it get stronger.”

Rivals

Now that EL has a team, it would be a natural assumption that the Lewiston-Edward Little rivalry would follow the teams into the new sport.

“Even though it’s going to be the JV team, it’s still going to be a big game,” said Burgess. “We coached a lot of the kids that are on both the Lewiston and St. Dom’s teams when they were in the youth leagues. It’ll be like a homecoming of sorts. At the same time, you know that they will all want to beat us.”

jpelletier@sunjournal.com

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