For youth interested in learning the nuts and bolts of lacrosse, North Allegheny Youth Lacrosse is set to hold three free clinics beginning in January.
The clinics, which will be held at the North Park Sports Complex, are open to kindergartners through eighth graders in North Allegheny School District. Private school students who reside in the district also are welcome.
Though the youth organization “works closely” with the district, North Allegheny Youth Lacrosse is not officially associated with North Allegheny School District.
Attending players can expect to learn lacrosse fundamentals with provided equipment, according to Sam Cammarata, coach and president of the organization’s board. That means basic stick-handling, footwork and passing skills. The clinic will use boy’s lacrosse equipment and rules, but girls are welcome, too.
Cammarata said he has “been around the game a long time,” playing for North Allegheny in the 1990s, before competing at the collegiate level. He said he is expecting new participants at this year’s clinics.
“We’re seeing some age ranges of 4- to 5-year-olds to eighth graders trying out the sport, which is a great thing to see,” he said.
The sport “translates well,” Cammarata said, into other athletic pursuits. Many of the participants are multisport athletes, and some of them have found success in higher levels of lacrosse, he said.
Colman Craft, a North Allegheny senior, tried out the sport for the first time in fifth grade at a youth clinic. He said he remembers struggling to catch the ball at his first practice.
But several years and many catches later, Craft said he will play lacrosse at Hobart College in Geneva, N.Y., while he studies business management. As for the clinics, he said he still helps out.
“In the fall, we had a similar start-up clinic to what I had when I was a kid,” Craft said. “So it was a full-circle moment getting back to the kids, and there were kids there just like me.”
The organization is trying to “decrease the overall cost of the sport,” said Nicole Mazur, a board member of North Allegheny Youth Lacrosse. She said her seventh and fifth grader starting playing in primary school, but the sport is “approachable” at an older age, too.
Her organization has about 130 players, she said, who practice and play in local tournaments. It often acts as a “feeder” to the North Allegheny High School Lacrosse team, she said.
“It’s a really, really fun sport, which is why I love watching it, my boys love playing it and my husband loved coaching it,” Mazur said. “It’s something worth learning more about and worth trying out.”
The clinics will take place from 5 to 6 p.m. Jan. 18, Jan. 25 and Feb. 1. Mazur advised those interested in attending to email info@naylax.org.