LACEY — While lacrosse is not an officially recognized high school sport in the state of Washington by the WIAA, University Lax (ULAX) has stepped in to ensure that high school athletes have an opportunity to compete.
The ULAX Olympia high school boys lacrosse team concluded its inaugural summer season as part of the Pacific Coast Lacrosse League Monday evening with a 14-5 victory against Stadium at the Regional Athletic Complex. Olympia’s team, which is primarily comprised of student athletes from Olympia High School, finished with a 2-3 record this summer and ended on a high note with a season-best 14 goals.
ULAX Olympia has offered men’s leagues in the fall and summer since the start of the decade. In other states, ULAX also features women’s and youth leagues.
Olympia High School has been at the forefront of the high school lacrosse movement in Thurston County in recent years. Students helped start a lacrosse club at the high school and played its first spring season at Ingersoll Stadium this past spring against schools from up north.
Maxwell Cutts, an incoming junior at Olympia High School and president of the school’s lacrosse club, suited up for ULAX Olympia to gain extra reps in the summer. He and rising OHS senior Henry Walter, the school’s club vice president, also compete with Thurston Lacrosse Club and South Sound Lacrosse. They were key pieces in ULAX Olympia’s win, as Walter led all athletes with four goals and one assist, and Cutts netted three goals.
“We’ve all known each other for a long time. We have our spring high school season, and then for the younger kids who are incoming freshmen, we’ve coached them up as Thurston Lacrosse Club is now,” Walter said. “They’ve been coming up through the system like we did. I really enjoy not having to play what I like to do. It’s fun to see events here because it’s a representation of the game growing as it spreads from east to west.”
Kade Hoffman also notched three goals for ULAX Olympia in the season finale, and Oliver Kim delivered a pair. Benjamin Shaffer and Olen Norquist also scored a goal, and goalkeeper Broderick Dinkins Jr. recorded eight saves in the net.
Currently, Olympia and Stadium are the only two teams in the Pacific Coast Lacrosse League under the ULAX umbrella, but Andy Leise, assistant manager for ULAX Olympia, believes the organization will further expand in not just Thurston County but across the South Sound. He said Kitsap and Pierce counties are the heart of lacrosse in the South Sound, but Thurston County isn’t far behind. Thurston Lacrosse Club, formerly known as Olympia Lacrosse Club, has been operating since 2015 and offers teams for boys and girls from kindergarten through high school, in addition to scholarships.
“I’ve seen it grow since I was a kid. They didn’t really have lacrosse, and now it’s getting a lot bigger,” Leise said of the sport’s growth in Thurston County. “You’ve got a lot of kids playing club lacrosse. We’re hoping to get three or four teams next year.”
Walter and Cutts have both played lacrosse since they were elementary schoolers, drawing interest in the sport due to its creativity and physicality, as well as how it combines skills from other sports.
“When I was younger, I played a lot of different sports, and I liked how it was a mix of a bunch of different sports with the footwork, the handling and the hand-eye coordination,” Cutts said. “I wanted to play a contact sport that was physical, and my parents didn’t want me to play football. I found out about lacrosse, and I’ve been playing ever since.”
Lacrosse is an official sport in half of the states in the United States, with Nevada becoming the 25th state starting this upcoming school year. Washington may still be several years away from adding lacrosse as a sanctioned sport, Leise said, but the interest at the youth and high school levels around the South Sound can’t be ignored.
“It’s my personal mission to grow the game in the South Sound and the Pacific Northwest as a whole,” Leise said. “It means a lot to see kids enjoy the game just as much as me.”
To learn more about ULAX Olympia, visit https://ulax.org/olympia/.
