Sports
Lacrosse -- Hockey without Ice -- Coming to Plainfield
A local traveling club is partnering with the Plainfield Park District to offer the sport for the first time here.
Think hockey.
Now take away the ice.
What’s left is lacrosse. And, if New Wave LAX organizers have their way, it’s coming soon to a Plainfield boy near you.
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“It’s a lot like hockey,” said 14-year-old AJ Cioffi, an eighth-grader at Plainfield's .
“There’s a lot of hitting,” he said. “It’s a contact sport.”
Find out what's happening in Plainfieldfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Cioffi and best bud Austin Adams, an eighth-grader at , are two of 20 local players. All told, there are about 200 in the southwest suburbs who make up the New Wave LAX travel teams, which go around the country to compete.
New Wave LAX (that’s code for lacrosse) has been around for more than a decade and has teams in Naperville, New Lenox and Elgin. Now they're partnering with the to offer lacrosse here.
“Plainfield is one of the only local cities from Minooka to the Wisconsin border that does not have an active lacrosse club,” said Paul Stolzer, who founded New Wave LAX with Andy Thompson and Kyle Sullivan. It was originally known as Players Indoors.
The group will hold a free lacrosse clinic on April 2 at Northwest Community Park for ages 8 to 14.
“We currently have a number of local kids playing on elite programs out of Naperville and the western suburbs,” Stolzer said.
Among them are AJ and Austin, who both play a position called “attack.” Last year, their New Wave Club team took the Illinois Boy’s Lacrosse Championship with a 27-0 record.
Lacrosse teams compete inside all winter and outside on a field bigger than a football gridiron in the summer.
“It takes a lot of hand-eye coordination,” Austin said. “You have a stick with a head about three inches wide and you have to hit a ball about a centimeter.”
Austin is an all-round athlete. He plays baseball and football, does snowboard racing in the winter and competitive wake boarding in the summer. AJ said he gave up other team sports to focus on lacrosse.
Stolzer, 40-year lacrosse veteran, won a host of college honors and was inducted into the Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2006.
Leagues begin on April 13, with games and practices at least two days a week. Interested players can register with Plainfield Park District. For more information on LAX, go to www.newwavelax.com.
