By Aldo Amato

For The Record

MADISON — A local lacrosse team has offered an alternative option for students who are actively involved in high school sports.

Patriots Lacrosse is part of the Huntsville Lacrosse Association and has recruited players from Bob Jones, James Clemens, Sparkman, Athens and even home-schools to take part in a sport that is slowly gaining momentum throughout the region.

Patriots coach Paul Burke, a lacrosse player himself, said the club organization has grown year by year.

“Every year we get larger,” he said. “When we founded the Huntsville Lacrosse Association in 2007, we had 84 kids total throughout various teams in the area. Today we have just under 400 kids so we’re growing.”

Lacrosse is extremely popular throughout the East Coast with colleges like Duke and John Hopkins leading college powerhouses. Though the game has been around for centuries, many in the area do not understand how the game is played or what it compares to.

“I heard the best description of it a couple of years ago,” Burke said. “It was ‘if you took the best part of your favorite sport and threw it all together, you got lacrosse.’ That is completely accurate because we combine the athleticism of basketball, soccer and play on a football-sized field.”

The Patriots are currently 3-5 on the season and compete against various other schools in the state like Briarwood Christian, Mountainbrook and Oak Mountain. Burke said powerhouse and state runner-ups Grissom is the best in the Huntsville area.

“We’ve had kids go on and play at Millsaps College, Huntington and Mt. Olive College,” Burke said. “And right now we are playing in our spring schedule so we might see players on our team now play in college in the next coming years.”

Aside from competing on the field, Patriots Lacrosse is actively involved in the community. They have put on demos at local elementary schools and plan to parter with the Hogan YMCA down the road. Burke said that they hope to one day become an official AHSAA sport.

“We keep [Bob Jones] principal Robby Parker updated,” he said. “There have been discussion and one day I see us becoming an official sanctioned sport.”

For more information, visit www.huntsvillelax.org or uslacrosse.org.