District 99 started a lacrosse team during the 2013-2014 school year. Although it has been three years, lacrosse is not an IHSA sponsored sport. In order for lacrosse to be considered an IHSA sport, there needs to be 65 boys teams and 40 girls teams in their respective tournaments according to the IHSA website.
This season, the girls’ lacrosse team has higher numbers than past years. This year 45 girls tried out and 24 made junior varsity and 20 girls made varsity. The girls’ varsity team is currently composed of six seniors, five juniors, eight sophomores and one freshman.
DGS senior Violette Klesta started playing lacrosse with the DG team just last year.
“I think lacrosse is definitely becoming more popular and really is an overlooked sport by some people,” Klesta said. “Because we are not funded by IHSA, we are not an official state sport so I think we do not get as much respect by other athletes, yet we work as hard and sometimes harder than other sports teams.”
Junior Jacqueline Ruf has played lacrosse as a hobby since she was in the fifth grade but never played on a team until it was available to her freshman year.
¨I do think that [lacrosse] has grown since I was a freshman because our first year we only had one team with a couple subs,” Ruf said.
Leea Hruska, the current varsity coach who is also affiliated with New Wave, a local travel team, has been playing lacrosse for almost six years. This is her first year coaching the Downers Grove team and she is very excited about the growing popularity of the sport.
“Lacrosse is becoming such a popular sport in the midwest because it is such a different sport and since a lot of people do not really know that much about it, they are intrigued to learn more. It is such a fun sport and it utilizes movements from every sport, so it is really easy to transition to and learn,” Hruska said.
Some girls on the team are from other sports, looking for something new to try.
“We have a lot of girls who played softball or who played soccer and decided that they wanted to try lacrosse this year. So we are glad to have them because they have made a huge impact on our teams,” Hruska said.
Anybody, with or without experience, is welcome to begin their lacrosse career with the DG team.
“Playing lacrosse has been one of the best parts of my high school career and I would definitely recommend it for anyone who is thinking about playing,” Klesta said.
The Trojans are currently 3-7 on the varsity level. Their next home game is April 25 against Glenbard West at Carsten’s Field.