Something new is going on at Venus Park in Edgewood.
Late in the afternoon at the north end of the park, a bunch of kids are running around in a frenzy. They are wearing protective gear on their heads, shoulders and hands, and carrying something that resembles a hockey stick with a mesh pocket at the end. The stick, and the small rubber ball the players carry in the stick’s pocket are at the heart of the sport.
This is East Mountain Youth Lacrosse, a league that started just over a month ago. It’s fast, fun and it’s a hit with the kids.
“It’s starting to gain traction,” said Joey Bacharka, the head coach and organizer of the league in the East Mountains.
Bacharka said the East Mountain League is an extension of Albuquerque Youth Lacrosse.
“We have all ages, boys and girls,” he said. “Pretty much every practice we have a new kid out here, today we have two new kids, so it’s been a good thing.”
Watching the kids sprint around the field reveals the sport’s appeal: the players bump and jostle until one zeroes in on a netted box that looks like a small soccer or hockey goal with a goalie defending it. The attacking player raises his stick and thrusts the ball out of the pocket. It zips through the air toward the goal and goes in.
“I like the diversity of it,” said 13-year-old James Salerno. “It’s kind of like tapping into a bunch of different sports.”
“It’s really fun because it’s a contact sport, like football, and it’s kinda like soccer with the nets,” said Davis Fajardo, a sixth grader at Edgewood Middle School.
Mason McCarty, a sixth grader at Estancia Valley Classical Academy in Edgewood, and Ethan Pierce, a seventh grader at the school, said they also enjoy the contact and the diversity of the sport.
“It’s a mixture of games, like football, and you can check people like in hockey,” Pierce said.
McCarty said he likes boxing out and bumping into people. “It’s like all the sports combined, basically,” he said.
The speed of the sport is also part of the appeal.
“It’s pretty fast,” 13-year-old Jyrmiah Allen said. “I like doing things fast.”
The kids in Edgewood have been practicing, learning the rules of the game and scrimmaging. But Bacharka is hoping to get more players. He said he needs one more player in each age group — 14U, 12U and 10U — to have full teams that could compete against teams in Albuquerque.
“This is our first season, so the goal, ultimately, even if it’s halfway through the season, is to pick up a few more kids and we’ll be able to have some games,” Bacharka said.
And Bacharka added, “Everyone that’s tried it out has liked it.”
