When freshman Jenna Turner started her first year of high school, she decided to take the path less traveled by her older brother and sister throughout their high school careers. She decided to play lacrosse after running varsity track in middle school. Unlike her siblings, who had both competed in varsity sports, Turner instead turned to a club sport not sponsored by the school. By doing this, she joined a seemingly growing number of athletes choosing to forgo traditional school sports in favor of club sports.

“I don’t know how I found out about lacrosse. It might have because my cousin played it, but I realized I wanted to try it, because I like to try new sports and I really liked it,” Turner said.

While still somewhat unknown amongst the local sports community, lacrosse is able to offer its players many opportunities that might not be available to them on a traditional varsity sports, according to Kristin Rogers, President of the Board for Carmel Women’s Lacrosse. This is not surprising due to the natural competitiveness that comes along with the large numbers at this school.

“There’s a lot of opportunity to make an impact and it’s exciting to play a sport that you haven’t played your whole life that most people don’t even know anything about,” Rogers said.

Due to its status as a non-school sport, the lacrosse program and its athletes face extra challenges when it comes to running their season. Lacrosse players face several issues each season ranging from finding fields to practice at to the actual costs of playing for the team. These extra challenges are unique for club sports from which lacrosse, even though it is a larger club sport with programs beginning as young as third grade, is not immune.

“Only recently have we been allowed to play on Carmel High School fields and since we haven’t been able to (use the school fields) lately, it’s just kind of become a huge hassle and it really kind of makes you wonder if it’s worth it,” Erin Twiehaus, a senior who has played lacrosse for six years, including all four years of high school, said.

Women’s lacrosse in Indiana has a governing body, the Indiana High School Women’s Lacrosse Association (IHSWLA) much like the Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) however, the competition teams in the IHSWLA face is rather different than that of the IHSAA in terms of how many teams they have to play during the season. According to Rogers, Indiana has about 20 women’s lacrosse teams. And while that number is much smaller than the teams included in the IHSAA, much like with school sports, many teams are forming rivalries.

“Recently (the IHSWLA) have done kind of like a redistricting, so that when we go to play for Sectionals, State and that kind of thing, we’re going to play different teams. So this year, our toughest competitor is Noblesville instead of Zionsville like it always has been,” Twiehaus said.

While the competition for lacrosse players in Indiana may be limited with teams sometimes playing each other twice during the same season, college lacrosse is more widespread and well known, as the sport is much more popular in other parts of the country. And with their players beginning to get recruited more and more, the Carmel lacrosse players will soon find out just how much their sport can offer them.

For Twiehaus, the recruiting process is starting to affect her firsthand with letters coming in from small, private schools around the nation. Because this is just her first season in high school, Turner, for the time being, is not really interested in the college aspect of the sport just yet.

“I’m not really looking for scholarships when I play sports,” Turner said. “I’m looking to have fun and enjoy myself and (I) want to work hard at a sport that I actually like.”