Merl Grove High School is set to become the latest school to join the lacrosse family in Jamaica.

Lacrosse will be entering its seventh year as a sport being contested by local high schools and has enjoyed steady growth over that time.

On Sunday, Jamaica Lacrosse made a donation of sticks and other equipment to Merl Grove to help get the programme underway.

President of the Merl Grove Parent Teachers’ Association (PTA) Ava Bigby-Edmond said that increasing sporting activities in the school and unearthing the talent of the girls, is a part of the mission of the PTA.

“We see lacrosse as an avenue for the girls to excel and access scholarship opportunities. The school has been dormant in terms of sports and we would like to build awareness of the talent that exists within Merl Grove,” she said.

“We are also thinking of introducing other sports such as badminton and table tennis as well and we have started to explore those options to give even more girls the opportunity to challenge and express themselves,” Bigby-Edmond said.

Vice-president of Jamaica Lacrosse Dwight Clarke is pleased with the growth the sport has had in Jamaica over the years, but points to the inability to access equipment as a hinderance to even further growth on the island.

“I am very pleased with the growth that we have been having over the years, the only thing that is really stopping us from really growing [faster] is the point of getting equipment into the island, because there is nobody that sells it in the island.

“Currently our director of lacrosse brought in some stuff for us, so we are embarking on getting a few new schools on,” he noted.

Merl Grove High has already committed to being a part of the new season and other schools are on the radar as well, Clarke revealed.

“We are going to start with Merl Grove for the coming season. Hopefully, we can have a season after the reopening of schools and sporting activities, so based on that, we will definitely look and see how we can grow some more going forward.

“We want to go to Jonathan Grant and St Catherine High, but we haven’t gotten anything solid from those schools yet, so we are just waiting on them to tell us what is happening so we can move from there,” said Clarke.

He spoke to the importance of scholarship opportunities provided by the sport to student athletes.

“It’s very important and what I noticed with the lacrosse colleges abroad, they are going for diversity. So what they are doing, once we have our students going on the international stage, like the girls did when they went to Ireland in 2019, about five of them already got scholarships to go away.

“The boys haven’t gone as yet, but they have about four scholarships already lined up, so I see where there is an avenue here, just as the same as track and field and any other sport that we have in Jamaica right now,” Clarke explained.

The boys, he says, were delayed due to COVID-19, but they will still have a chance to participate in an international tournament and increase their chances of securing scholarships overseas.

“Because of COVID the tournament was postponed, so it moved from this year to 2022, so it will be an Under-21 instead of an Under-19 tournament, for the same set of boys, in Ireland.

“Once they go on the international stage and have footage of their games and how they perform, that allows them to get scholarships even better. So as long as we can get them exposed to international competition that would be a good thing for them,” Clarke concluded.

Currently the schools participating in girls’ lacrosse are Convent of Mercy Academy “Alpha”, St Hugh’s, Wolmer’s, Campion, Hillel, Charlemont, Penwood, Excelsior and Immaculate, while on the boys side there are Kingston College, St George’s College, Wolmer’s, Calabar, Hillel, Campion, Excelsior, and Penwood.

Holy Trinity High participated in the boys’ lacrosse up to 2019 and are expected to make a return when high school sports return on the island.