SOLON — Lacrosse, a sport sometimes referred to as “hockey on grass,” is gaining in popularity and has found a home in Solon.
The Kingfisher Lacrosse Club calls the football field behind the high school baseball stadium “home.” The club, one of only six in the state, draws members as young as kindergarten and as old as high school seniors. They come from Hills to Robins, and from near Muscatine to Williamsburg, with a significant number coming from Solon.
On a recent sunny Sunday morning, the 10U team was practicing and scrimmaging at the SRNA ahead of a Saturday, October 15 “statewide play day” in Des Moines. Club President Jack Kueter explained the sport, the club’s goals, and why Solon is the perfect nest for the Kingfishers.
“We are immensely grateful to Solon and the Park and Rec program, and the school district. The community has really embraced our program as we’ve come around. We’re just completing our second full season and about 1/3 to ½ of our kids are from Solon, across all of the age groups.” For the Kingfishers, it’s been, “Just a tremendous reception for what we’re trying to build,” Kueter said.
Youth lacrosse’s main competition season is in the spring with preseason work for older and veteran players starting in January and February. “We get out on the practice field right after spring break and pretty much everybody plays until the first week in June.”
The six programs include three clubs in the greater Des Moines area: West Des Moines (the first in Iowa), Waukee (a recent spin-off from W. Des Moines), and Ankeny. Ames is home to a team combined with the Meskwaki Settlement in Tama. Then there are the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids corridor Kingfishers, “And then over on the east coast you’ve got Dubuque and the Quad Cities (combined).”
For everything below high school an Iowa league exists. “We’ll play those teams at various times throughout the (spring) season.” At the high school level, the Des Moines area teams are part of a Nebraska-based league. “We haven’t quite bridged-over a high school league in Iowa,” Kueter said. “Although, with our program coming in, we were successfully able to play all of the varsity-level programs in Iowa this past season.” Many of those games were played at the SRNA, he noted.
The Kingfishers, as are all six clubs in Iowa, totally separate from any school district. At this point, the Iowa High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) and Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union (IGHSAU) have not sanctioned lacrosse. As Kueter pointed out however, it may only be a matter of time before they do.
“The aspiration is that as the sport grows, we move it toward high school affiliation, and you’ll have those more formal linkages between the schools and the communities. But for now I’d equate us to soccer in the 1980s where it was mostly private clubs. But once it started gaining momentum toward the end of the 80s and the early 1990s, you had high schools picking it up all over the state, and the beginnings of (athletic) conferences.” He acknowledged his program, and the others are “a bit far” from that level currently, making reference again to soccer in the early 80s. “We’re going to work toward that, that’s the aspiration that our club shares, and certainly our sister clubs around the state share. We want to see lacrosse in the schools.”
Growth in the sport will likely begin at the parks and recreation level, he said. “A lot of those programs across the state are looking for other sports to compliment their existing suite of activities. We have a lot of interest from the area Park and Rec Associations to have my guys (coaches) come in and run clinics that is part of their programming. We’re glad to do that, it helps us to get the word out about lacrosse and allows us to get into communities that we’re not able to get to because our main field is here.”
As the sport continues to develop and solidify, he said, “We will be creating a feeder program for us, but also creating a new and interesting set of population dynamics, we may get a large cluster of kids out of Marion, for example, that want a program closer to home. That’s when we’ll know we’ve really got something going on.” If such a scenario would come to fruition, the club would split, he said. “We would have a Marion club and Kingfisher would encompass everything else but Marion. Or, Solon, or wherever we begin that carve-out process.”
How to get started
Lacrosse has multiple entry points, Kueter said, ranging from park and rec programs hosting learn to play clinics. “We host Learn to Play clinics (one started on October 2 in Coralville) occasionally on this field and in other places. Information on upcoming clinics and about the club can be found on their website, kingfisherlacrosse.com, their Facebook page www.facebook.com/KingfisherLax, or by emailing Kueter at [email protected].
“Reach out to us and come to a practice. Anybody can come to a practice for free and try it out. We’re happy to have anybody come and pick up a stick and give it a go.”
Grey Denes readies a pass during a recent intersquad scrimmage of the Kingfisher Lacrosse Club at the SRNA.