CLEVELAND — Wooster High School Senior Hannah Logiudice said she got early exposure to lacrosse. 


What You Need To Know

  • Ohio’s high school lacrosse presence is growing, according to OHSAA data

  • OHSAA data shows more high school programs are being built since the sport became sanctioned by the OHSAA
  • Wooster lacrosse coach Holly Pope said youth programs will drive the sport to new heights

“My older sister started playing, so I kinda had to," Logiudice said.

She said more kids signed up to play as she moved her way from the youth programs to middle school and high school. She’s still meeting new teammates that haven’t tried it before.

“Lacrosse is like one of the sports that everyone’s welcome to join," Logiudice said. 

Ohio’s high school lacrosse presence is growing, according to OHSAA data. It shows that since boys and girls lacrosse became official sports in the spring of 2017, girls' lacrosse teams have increased from 123 to 136.

Boys' lacrosse teams have jumped from 136 teams to 147 last year.

Logiudice said turnout helps a program grow, and increases popularity.

“For lacrosse, we usually have like five, maybe six people who have never played the sport before," Logiudice said. 

Freshman goalie Kennedy Hartzler is one of them. She's playing her first year in front of the net in lacrosse. She is a hockey goalie and is learning how to use a different kind of stick.

“For lacrosse, all the shots, like just the view perspective of everything, all the shots come in from high down low," Hartzler said. "In hockey, they all come from low to high. So it’s just a completely different perspective change.”

Head coach Holly Pope is an alum of the Wooster lacrosse program. It was just a club sport when she played. She said the sport is evolving as more people join. She said back when she played; it was mostly a northeastern sport.

“When you think of lacrosse, you think of Maryland," Pope said. "When I played, New York was kind of coming on to the scene, a lot of New Jersey schools. We even played some Canadian teams when I was in high school. Now you’re getting pockets of, you know, Minnesota. Colorado has become huge. California, and so it’s just growing and changing all the time.”

But she said starting through youth programs is what will drive the sport to new heights.

“Just knowing that I see my little girls and they’re on the sideline all the time and they’re paying attention, and they understand and they’re using the vocabulary and the terminology when they’re seven and nine years old," Pope said. "So by the time they get to high school, they’ll be that much further ahead.”

Logiudice said the completion is stretched thin in her area and more teams could mean more opportunities to play nearby.

“It would mean we didn’t have to drive like three hours away for every game, which would be helpful," Hannah said.

Coach Pope said she's optimistic that lacrosse can become one of the fastest growing sports in Ohio.