Lacrosse is fun. Just ask Daniel Merrill, a Kennedy student who is not interested so much in spring sports like soccer, baseball and track.

"I just love it," he said. "It has a mix of everything. It has a little bit of baseball catching the ball in a net, and it has basketball staying with the man, and soccer, running up and down the field."

Merrill is the Mount Rainier Lacrosse team's leading scorer with 17 goals and one assist and he had the lone goal in a 16-1 loss to Franklin in this non-WIAA sanctioned official 'club' sport match played at Mosier Field Monday.

Lacrosse has a field similar to a soccer field. In fact dimensions are the same as a regulation size field, 110 yards long by 60 feet wide. The difference is that the goals are moved up 15 yards from the endline. And, there is no goal line. So that means that players can take a shot and if the ball does not go that 15 yards out of bounds they can still scoop up the ball with their Lacrosse stick and play on, even circling from behind the net back into play before passing or shooting.

The game is played in waves, eight players on each team. Line one starts and line two is ready to go because, like Merrill said, there is a lot of running up and down the field so subs must be plentiful.

Lacrosse is getting more and more popular. It is not a WIAA sport so no funds for it come from the school district and it is not able to have a springtime state tournament. Therefore, like, soccer, baseball, track and fastpitch. But that is not stopping it. Lacrosse players see it's popularity, even game coverages by the daily web bloggers in the state at www.walax.com. There are girls and boys leagues all across the country. In this state, teams play from all over, Puyallup to Issaquah, and, all points in between, even Vashon and Bainbridge have teams.

"There are 40 high schools in Washington state playing Lacrosse as a club sport now," said Mount Rainier coach Mark Benedum, with players on this Rams team mostly from Tyee and Highline, ironically enough, and Merrill is the lone Kennedy Lacrosse player.

But let's be honest. This is a rough sport. Mount Rainier has lost players this year to injury from the stick checking that can't do anything but bruise shins and thighs. How about the barreling into a player with a springing shoulder to the mid-section? Or, how about having someone flail a 4-foot long stick with a net at the end at your face, stabbing for the lacrosse ball in your net?

Good thing they do at least wear shoulder pads.

Yes, it's all there in Lacrosse -- running, jumping, weaving, diving, passing, and, of course, scoring. The Rams missed a lot of that scoring and defending stuff against Franklin for obvious reasons.

"We were missing key players tonight, but that's the way it goes," said Benedum.

Two players missing from Mount Rainier against Franklin were Jeremy Holley, a junior who broke his wrist in a Lacrosse match just last week. He may or may not return. And, the team's second captain, senior Adam Common, pulled a hamstring in a match two weeks ago.

"They are good players. Jeremy plays everywhere and Adam plays great defense and scores some goals too," said Merrill.

They are both veterans, too, said Merrill, adding that, "We have a whole bunch of "first-years" (first-year players) out here and with Adam and Jeremy out we need people to step up in those spots."

They do. Indeed the Franklin offense was pretty much scoring at will it seemed in this game, with the poor Mount Rainier keeper, Keith Jones, getting quite a bit of fly-by shootings.

A lot of this game is strategy, like games of soccer -- overlapping, setting picks, in a sense anyway. Being caught standing is a good reason to be blown over. But it really is not a sport for the timid. Don't be fooled, it is for those that want to impress girlfriends and show they can take a licking and keep on ticking.

Jones was scored on many times, true enough, but the Highline High School attendee also made some super saves of some zippy shots flying through the air.

Jones played better a game before the Franklin one, he admitted.

"I wish you would have been there on Tuesday," said Jones. "That was my game. They took 33 shots and I had 24 saves."

So they lost that one by double digits and did not have much offense like this game because of injuries, including, as aforementioned, Holley and Commons' absences. And that meant triple coverage would be Merrill's burden.

Franklin's coach knew who the best guy was.

"That's their gunner, get on him," he said.

Certainly Merrill was covered in this game as their coach only had to yell that phrase a couple times when Merrill got the '"puck" and was trying to find a way to get a shot off.

"Yeah, I think I got the ball twice," said Merrill. "They double-teamed me. Then I would try to do a dodge and they would have me triple-teamed."

The only time Merrill did touch the ball, he admitted, was when Franklin had a man down because of a penalty. See now the "puck" word can be realized so hockey is one more sport Lacrosse is like.

So what is not to like. It's really got it all, except the WIAA (Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association) making it an official spring sport.

"The girls at Kennedy are thinking of playing next year," said Benedum. "Many's feeling is that it is only a matter of time before Lacrosse is sanctioned by the WIAA."

Benedum also wanted to thank the Burien Parks Department.

"They are allowing us to play here for games, and they let us use their practice fields at Manhattan," he said.

Next year's Mount Rainier Lacrosse team looks to be better than this year with so many first-year players, after all, they did win two games the year before this one of being winless so far in their club league.

"Next year, we should have 14 kids coming back," said Benedum, who has 22 players on the roster but only six that have played Lacrosse at a club high school level, if ever. "It takes a season to understand."