In the fall and winter, they wear different colors at football and basketball games. But this spring, the girls lacrosse team dons the same jersey, coming together from different schools to form the Valkyries.
Facing a player shortage, the ELHS girls lacrosse team merged with four other teams this year: Lansing Catholic, Bath, Lansing Christian and Waverly. Through the co-op arrangement, the team has experienced growth and formed new friendships.
The new association was organized in the summer by head coach Brendan Martin. The final approval came in October.
“I was waiting all summer on pins and needles to see if it was going to happen, because we really wanted to expand the team,” Martin said.
But the co-op didn’t originally include East Lansing. Martin, had also coached a summer team, and on that team, there was a player from Bath who didn’t have a lacrosse team at her school. To help her, Martin worked with the assistant athletic director at Lansing Catholic to combine Bath and Lansing Catholic into one team. But with East Lansing’s roster size decreasing the past few years, Martin decided it would be a good idea to also join the two teams. By joining teams, they now have enough participants for a fuller varsity and JV team.
“I think [the decline in participation] was because of COVID,” Martin said. “They just didn’t play in 2020 when they were in middle school.”
Miley Green (12) has been on the team since her freshman year and has seen the positive effects of the increased team size firsthand.
“Last year we were overly stressed out because we had no subs, nobody really came to practice,” Green said. “Now that we have a lot of people we’re growing a lot as a team.”
Counterintuitively, the co-op of several schools leads to a closer-knit team.
“They’re better friends because of the different schools,” Martin said. “It seems like the girls that go to the same school, kind of know each other, [and] know the friend groups that already exist. But then when you get the girls from different schools, it’s like, ‘Oh, you like lacrosse? I like lacrosse too.’”
East Lansing player Nora Johnson (11) joined the team this year. It’s her first year playing high school lacrosse.
“We all get along really well, so it makes playing a lot easier throughout the season,” Johnson said. “They’re all really nice. They’re all my best friends, so it’s fun.”
However, having a joint team complicates logistics. East Lansing and Lansing Catholic’s spring breaks are different weeks, which led to decreased available practice time for the team. The team plays their games primarily at East Lansing facilities, but a couple games are going to be at Lansing Catholic.
The team’s mascot is the Valkyries, which is the mascot of the new WNBA expansion team that began this past year.
“When you do the co-ops, some people just [name the team] “United” or different things like that,” Martin said. “But I wanted to do something cool since we had the chance.”
Even with their numbers on the rise, the team still welcomes more players, regardless of experience.
“We want anybody to [join], even if they just want to come try for a day and see if they like it,” Martin said.
Additionally, equipment is available for anyone who would like to play.
Assistant coach Hanigan Racelis played lacrosse in high school and college before becoming a speech therapist at ELHS. Racelis feels lucky to be a part of the program.
“Sports, specifically lacrosse, build such a strong community,” Racelis said. “So when people join, it’s welcoming at whatever stage, high school, pre-high school, post-high school. And so the co-op is a good representation of that, of girls that want to play and get better and through that you form friendships.”
