In the spring of 2023, the Kentucky High School Athletics Association (KHSAA) voted to sponsor both boys’ and girls’ lacrosse championships for the 2024-25 season.
The decision made Kentucky just the 27th state to sanction the fast-growing sport and only the seventh southern state to do so.
Currently in Kentucky, there are only two active competitive high school lacrosse leagues. Schools in Jefferson and Oldham Counties compete in the Kentucky Scholastic Lacrosse League (KSLL), while all other programs participate in the Commonwealth Lacrosse League (CLL). Most teams in the CLL are based in the Lexington/Central Kentucky area.
Lacrosse throughout the country has been gaining undeniable momentum recently and, while it’s evident that the formation of the Premier Lacrosse League (PLL) in 2018 caused nationwide popularity, Louisville hosting the PLL All-Star weekend in 2024 paired with the KHSAA sanctioning proves the fast-growing sport is reaching heights never seen before in the Bluegrass.
Also reaching new heights is the Kentucky men’s lacrosse club team, who is set to participate in club Division-I for the first time with the team’s recent move to the Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association (MCLA).
“I think lacrosse as a whole, even since I’ve grown up in Louisville from second grade to now, has made a tremendous spike,” Kentucky men’s lacrosse club goalkeeper Bryce Moad said.
Though lacrosse is widely considered the oldest team sport in North America, it took until 1998 for the first high school club team to form in Kentucky at St. Xavier College Preparatory High School.
Former St. Xavier head coach, Scott Howe, who led the Tigers to 16 championships, including 21 appearances in 22 seasons, was on that very club team responsible for breaking the barrier in Kentucky. Howe, who was pivotal in creating competition and opportunities for aspiring players, is often recognized as the manufacturer of lacrosse in the Bluegrass.
Moad, who won a handful of championships at St. Xavier under Howe, is grateful for the effect he made on lacrosse and praised the commitment from those who pillared the game.
“We were fortunate to have a lot of guys that really bought into the process and the growth of the sport, and eventually it became super competitive,” he said.
When Moad was in the third grade, he and his friends saw a YouTube video of someone talking about lacrosse in his hometown of Louisville. Shortly after, they decided to pick up sticks and join a local Peewee league. From his first game, he fell in love and knew he was going to stick with it.
As he grew older, he yearned for more. He joined travel teams to play against the best in the country and ultimately played for St. Xavier. Now, as a Kentucky lacrosse club athlete, he hopes to use their new MCLA platform to “show the youth that there is good lacrosse here in the MCLA as well.”
With the state achieving new feats across all levels of the sport, Kentucky is on its way to creating a lacrosse nirvana in the South.
