York Girls Lax

With girls' lacrosse finally achieving varsity status in some county high schools after years of being on the rise as a club sport, Kristin Kowalczyk wants to make sure that girls are ready to play the game when they get to high school. The special education teacher at Susquehannock High School and former Warriors Lacrosse Club girls' coach is starting an elementary girls' lacrosse program that will play on Sundays beginning in April.

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With girls' lacrosse finally achieving varsity status in some county high schools after years of being on the rise as a club sport, Kristin Kowalczyk wants to make sure that girls are ready to play the game when they get to high school. The special education teacher at Susquehannock High School and former Warriors Lacrosse Club girls' coach is starting an elementary girls' lacrosse program that will play on Sundays beginning in April.

The project, which Kowalczyk refers to as "her baby," is designed for girls in first through sixth grades and will focus on skills such as cradling, catching, passing, shooting and stick tricks. It is open to anyone in York County and will be run by Kowalczyk and Southwestern club coach Jim Copenhaver. "To have a good program for any (high) school you have to start younger," she said. "The boys have all these different age groups. Young girls currently play with boys, but they are two different sports."

The program already has 15 girls signed up, and each participant will receive a ball, a mouth guard and a T-shirt. Information is available on the elementary program at www.thegoldenidea.com. The elementary club program will feature high school girls working as volunteers -- which Kowalczyk hopes will give the young players athletes to look up to and one day emulate. It is the second such undertaking for Kowalczyk, who started a program called Golden Girls Lacrosse for high school girls who prefer not to drive to Maryland or Lancaster's Lanco Fieldhouse. The group plays 4-on-4 at the York Jewish Community Center on Sundays.

Kowalczyk was a goalkeeper at Methacton High School in the Philadelphia suburb of Eagleville. From there, she went to play for two seasons at East Stroudsburg University before several other extracurricular projects took away too much time. Her high school, college and, of course, Susquehannock are nicknamed the Warriors. It's no wonder her Web site exclaims, "Once a Warrior, always a Warrior."

She got her job at Susquehannock and immediately wanted to get involved, so she began coaching the girls' club team. Promoting the sport is important, but there is more to it. She resigned her post as Warriors Lacrosse Club coach because she wanted to do "something bigger." "I just want girls to play lacrosse," she said. "I am a huge advocate of women playing sports. I think it is a great opportunity, and I never want girls to sell themselves short. It opened so many different doors for me." The elementary program should coincide nicely with one of Kowalczyk's other programs. She also runs the middle school girls' lacrosse league for which she does everything from scheduling to making sure the fields are prepared.

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