The sanctioning of lacrosse for Pinellas County

To make lacrosse an official high school sport, the Pinellas Lacrosse Alliance needs to raise funds.

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Sarah Sesi

Sophia Sesi (‘20), a lacrosse player from PHU, played in a recruiting tournament over the summer with her travel Tampa Tropics in West Palm Beach.

Lacrosse is a sport that almost everyone knows of, and most people know at least one person who plays the sport. However, in Pinellas County, lacrosse is still currently a club sport, and it is not yet an official school sport.

The Pinellas Lacrosse Alliance, also known as the PLA, is trying to sanction this sport as an official high school sport for all of Pinellas County, which includes the following high schools: Palm Harbor University High School, East Lake High School, Clearwater High School, and St. Petersburg High School. To sanction the sport, the Pinellas Lacrosse Alliance are trying to raise $64,000 dollars for the start-up cost, most of which has already been raised.

The PLA organization was formed by volunteers in summer 2017, and they are getting closer to their goal of transitioning lacrosse from a club sport to an official Florida High School Athletic Association-sanctioned (or FHSAA-sanctioned) sport. To raise this money, the PLA relies on donations and events.

“The reason that the Pinellas Lacrosse Alliance is trying to sanction lacrosse for Pinellas County is because we can’t play many other teams anymore, since they’ve already been sanctioned as school sports,” Jennifer Young (‘20), a player on the Palm Harbor Hurricanes club lacrosse team said.

This means that the lacrosse teams of Pinellas can only play against other club teams, limiting them to only playing against a small number of teams as opposed to if lacrosse in Pinellas County was sanctioned as an official school sport. With the sanctioning of lacrosse, the opportunities for high school lacrosse athletes could be expanded by leaps and bounds.

For more information about the sanctioning of lacrosse as an official high school sport in Pinellas County, visit the official Pinellas Lacrosse Alliance website here: https://pc4lax.org/. Updates about events and status can be found at @PinellasLA on Twitter.