The door is open for Canadian girls playing field lacrosse to pursue scholarship opportunities in U.S. colleges and Jenna Barwise intends to see where that takes her.
She's among a small group of Prince George girls who plan to accelerate development of their lacrosse skills in return for what could be a paid education.
Barwise, Kaitlyn Legeard and Emily Prouse, all of Prince George, were invited to play for the Burnaby Mountain Selects two weeks ago for a game against a touring team from England. While they were with the team, Burnaby Selects boys elite team coach Brent Hoskins, head coach of the Simon Fraser University men's program, was extolling the virtues of sticking with field lacrosse all the way to the college level.
"He was telling us about all the opportunities girls have, even sometimes more than boys at some schools," said Barwise, who plays volleyball and basketball on the varsity teams at Kelly Road secondary school.
"I think if I set my mind to it and keep practicing and I take all the opportunities to play it would be option to play for a college team. I think I would enjoy it if I got to know it more, like all the girls in the Lower Mainland who have been playing for three or more years."
According to the website athleticscholarships.net, there are 335 universities or colleges in the U.S. which offer scholarships to women playing field lacrosse. Of that total, 87 are NCAA Division 1 schools, 47 are in NCAA Division 2, 177 are NCAA Division 3 and 16 are junior colleges.
Junior college teams are allowed 20 scholarship players, Div. 2 teams can offer 9.9 scholarships and Div. 1 teams can have 12 per team. Div. 3 teams do not have athletic scholarships but can offer financial aid to players. For men there are 290 college lacrosse programs to choose from in the U.S.
Field lacrosse and field hockey are the two sports with the highest number of U.S. college scholarships awarded annually to female athletes.
"Lacrosse is the fastest-growing sport in the States," said Bill Barwise, Jenna's father and the Zone 8 regional field lacrosse coach for the B.C. Lacrosse Association.
"All of the [Burnaby Mountain women's elite team] last year were committed to scholarships. When you see those kinds of numbers, it's a heck of an opportunity for girls," he said. "Because of the fact the American schools have to match the scholarships, boys to girls, if you have 80 kids on a boys football team and most of those guys are on scholarships, somewhere they have to make it up for girls."
Coach Barwise and his efforts to promote the sport during the past several years has paved the way for playing opportunities for Prince George athletes. Legeard, Prouse, and Serafina Sia played for New Westminster at the provincial field lacrosse championship in February and won the bronze medal. Domenic Sia, Miguel DaSilva and Liam Barwise all played for Burnaby Mountain Selects boys teams in 2011.
Legeard, 16, grew up playing soccer but now that she's aware of the demand for college-level athletes in lacrosse.
"This is my last year playing soccer, I just want to go big with lacrosse," Legeard said. "I've been playing soccer for 10 years and I haven't heard of any awesome scholarship opportunities or any good chances to play in Vancouver. I've already been in Vancouver three or four times to play lacrosse, and I've only been playing two years."
This spring, a group of 14 local girls formed the Posse midget girls box lacrosse team, the first Prince George female team in eight years. The Posse went 0-3 at the provincial playoffs in the Lower Mainland two weeks ago but just being involved at that level playing against the some of the top players in the country had an energizing effect.
Two girls --Sia and Shelby Watson -- are playing this weekend for the Posse midget B boys team at this weekend's provincial boys championship
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