The Harney-Nadzitsaga Lacrosse Club will be holding an informational meeting and sign ups for the upcoming 2010 season for youth (grades 5/6-7/8) and high school students. Any student from Harney County is welcome to join.

The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Dec. 10, at the Kids Club of Harney County. The cost to join is $35 for the season. For those students who do not have their own equipment, there is also a $35 rental fee. There is also a requirement to join US-Lacrosse for insurance/liability coverage. There is no requirement to purchase equipment, the club provides helmets, protective pads, gloves and uniforms and even cleats for those athletes who can not afford their own.

The club wants to get those kids who are interested in playing lacrosse some opportunities to start throwing the ball around throughout December, January and into February, so they decided to start signing kids up early and provide some instruction and conditioning.  The game itself is pretty simple, not any more complicated in concept than basketball or soccer. However, the game is far more physical than either. The mastery of lacrosse stick is the most difficult part of the game.

The high school team competes in the Oregon High School Lacrosse Association-High Desert Conference. The season runs from late February to early June. Along with the local team, the High Desert Conference consists of Bend, Hermiston, Sisters, Summit, Mountain View and Redmond high schools.

The Harney County team is easily the smallest high school lacrosse program in the state of Oregon, but for such a small program, they do pretty well. Over the last two years they are 20-20-1. They have taken on some big programs in Oregon and Idaho, beaten a few, got crushed by some and put a real scare into others. There are much larger teams in Oregon that have gone two to three years before they even won a game.

Both the Oregon and the Idaho leagues have taken notice of the local team and have nothing but good things to say about the kids.  Harney County should be proud of these kids because they represent the county well.

The middle school team will compete in several tournaments this spring and play some games against Sisters, St. Francis, Bend and other teams from Central and Western Oregon.

The high school team will have another full schedule this year. Between tournaments, conference games, non-conference games and out-of-state games with Boise area high school teams, they will have 18-20 games. If fortunate enough to get into the conference tournament and playoffs, they could have up to 25 games.

There are a total of 47 high school varsity teams in Oregon, Canby and Mountain View in Bend are the two newest additions for 2010. Lacrosse is the fastest growing high school sport in Oregon, in fact, the fastest growing in the United States.

If people can not make it to the meeting, sign up forms and informational brochures can be picked up at Shepherd Graphics or at the High Desert Parks and Recreation Office.

For more information, call Rick Roy at 589-1159.