Their kilts whirl in the crisp spring air like purple pinwheels. Their mouth guards encrust with spit and sweat. Their cleats dig deep into the earth. Their goggles strapped tight. Their socks are pulled high. Girls lacrosse is on a roll in 2008, but a story deeper and more impressive than their success is their to success. Three years ago, there was no Garfield girls lacrosse. But slowly, surely, a team arose from the ashes. And just now is that team hitting its stride, putting together the necessary pieces to pursue a division title.

It started two years ago; led by now-juniors Maria Sandvig and Rebecca Feldman and their mothers, Greenwood Lacrosse Club became Garfield Lacrosse.

“It’s kind of rough for the team because we are technically a club and we don’t get buses or coaches [from the school],” says junior Helen Potter. “There’s a lot of responsibility on the players and the parents.”

Although last year’s coaches were popular with the girls, they had little lacrosse experience and lacked the tools to teach to first-year players. This year’s addition of three assistant coaches, all of whom are well-versed in lacrosse, has given the team a major boost.

“We run drills and practice stick skills a lot more,” says Potter, “and the freshmen coming in this year have it a lot better than I did last year. All the positions, plays and strategies have been made really clear because we’re being coached by women who have a history of lacrosse.”

As the girls improve on a daily basis, so improves their ability to contend in their league.

“Varsity is pretty close to top four in our division,” says Sandvig, a captain. “There are a bunch of freshmen on the team too.”

Although girls lacrosse has certainly benefited from the surge of freshmen, it is a curious phenomenon. The question is, simply, why? What has galvanized masses of underclassmen to pursue a relatively obscure sport like lacrosse?

“Once you get over all these fouls, field markings, and lingo, there’s just this really cool sport that is something you can’t really get anywhere else,” says Potter. “You get to play a little rougher and get a little dirtier, and you get to wear these hot pleated kilts.”

For others, like Sandvig, lacrosse made a somewhat serendipitous entrance into their lives.

“I started in middle school at Seattle Girls School, and lacrosse was the only spring sport offered,” says Sandvig. “It was that or nothing.”

“We have some really great girls on our team in that vein, like freshmen Annie Schlossman and Krishni Seasholes,” says Potter of Seattle Girls School.

As long as underclassmen continue to find lacrosse, the girls team will thrive. The situation is ideal: an abundance in high-level coaching, an abundance in eager young grasshoppers hoping to improve their game, even a small middle school pumping in a handful of quality players on a yearly basis. The future is bright for girls’ lacrosse; if they can continue to harness the energy that brought them to this point in time, there’s no stopping them.