Origins of Our Program
The inaugural girls lacrosse team at Spring Lake Park High School (2008).
Players from left to right:
ROW 1: Unidentified player. ROW 2: Unidentified player, Lindsey Bjorge, Corey Simmer, Ariana Caldero, Katie Bassett, Hailey Campbell, Amanda Bjorge, Lexi Betchtold, Amber Johnson.
ROW 3: Coach Clark, Kelly Stifter, Becca Dahlen, Mirnesa Bibaca, Sydney Lener, Unidentified player, Alyssa Munsterman, Corrie Mikel, Unidentified player, Heather Hollermann, Katie Hawley, Karissa Thomson, Samantha Karl
Girls lacrosse in Spring Lake Park sparked in the early 2000's. As a relatively new sport, there weren't many options to play lacrosse, so a group of Spring Lake Park girls tried lacrosse through the closest program, the Andover Area Youth Lacrosse program. Around 2007, enough girls accumulated in our area to create the foundation of a team. Most girls were hockey players who found interest in the similarities of lacrosse for off-season activity. The word spread and other girls around our school and community expressed interest. With no program, no field, and no coach, the group of girls expressed their interest to school officials about starting a team. A history teacher named Chris Clark, formerly a basketball coach with no lacrosse experience, volunteered to coach this group of girls so that the team could form, and in 2008 the first ever Spring Lake Park girls lacrosse team was created.
We played our first two years as a program as a "club" team, playing other club girls lacrosse teams around our area. All home games were played on the grass fields behind Westwood Middle School, using old basketball jerseys as our game jerseys. In 2010, Spring Lake Park High School officially recognized our girls lacrosse team as a Varsity sport, following suit after other high school programs in the area. Thus, the birth of Panther girls lacrosse was upon us. Coach Clark coached the team from its inception until 2014, ushering in the foundation of hard work and passion for the game that most Panther laxers still exhibit today. Stats were not officially recorded in girls lacrosse until 2017, as girls lacrosse grew to be a more mainstream sport. Over the years, our jerseys changed to more officially represent the sport, skills and knowledge of the game have drastically increased, and both team and individual success has become more prominent in our program.
Multiple alumni went on to play lacrosse in college, as well as return to the program to coach. That information can be found on our website's Hall of Fame page. The hope for future players in our program is to provide them with the basic skills and knowledge of lacrosse, while creating a positive, rooted, and competitive team culture. We thank Chris Clark for stepping into a coaching role he knew minimally about to provide the opportunity to create a lasting program for our local girls. Lastly, we thank all the girls, parents, and coaches from the past, present, and future that have allowed us to continue providing opportunities for girls to engage in lacrosse and keep our standing traditions alive.
We played our first two years as a program as a "club" team, playing other club girls lacrosse teams around our area. All home games were played on the grass fields behind Westwood Middle School, using old basketball jerseys as our game jerseys. In 2010, Spring Lake Park High School officially recognized our girls lacrosse team as a Varsity sport, following suit after other high school programs in the area. Thus, the birth of Panther girls lacrosse was upon us. Coach Clark coached the team from its inception until 2014, ushering in the foundation of hard work and passion for the game that most Panther laxers still exhibit today. Stats were not officially recorded in girls lacrosse until 2017, as girls lacrosse grew to be a more mainstream sport. Over the years, our jerseys changed to more officially represent the sport, skills and knowledge of the game have drastically increased, and both team and individual success has become more prominent in our program.
Multiple alumni went on to play lacrosse in college, as well as return to the program to coach. That information can be found on our website's Hall of Fame page. The hope for future players in our program is to provide them with the basic skills and knowledge of lacrosse, while creating a positive, rooted, and competitive team culture. We thank Chris Clark for stepping into a coaching role he knew minimally about to provide the opportunity to create a lasting program for our local girls. Lastly, we thank all the girls, parents, and coaches from the past, present, and future that have allowed us to continue providing opportunities for girls to engage in lacrosse and keep our standing traditions alive.