Lacrosse Hawaii Style

The 2009 women's lacrosse season will conclude this weekend with games at Linfield on Thursday and Puget Sound on Saturday. The Boxers have experienced a great deal of improvement this season and stand to finish with their first above .500 record in the program's three-year history.

I have always been impressed with the fact that the top scorers for the Boxers have always been from Hawaii. This is amazing because lacrosse is not a recognized high school sport on the Islands and, to my knowledge, is about as popular in Hawaii as curling.

Last Friday's edition of the Garden Island newspaper (on Kauai) featured one of those Hawaii players. Shanlyn Souza has been part of the Pacific lacrosse program from the start, joining the first year club program and following through as the program went varsity. Souza, who did not plan on participating in any varsity sport at Pacific, said she fell in love with the pace of the game, which mimics the soccer she played in high school.

She found lacrosse a lot like soccer, “fast-paced,” with other elements she found very much to her liking, she said in a telephone interview.

“I just grew to really love the game. I really bonded with a lot of the players,” said Souza, who was elected the squad’s captain for three years in a row.

You can read the full feature on Shanlyn by Clicking Here.