ATTLEBORO - How popular has lacrosse become among young athletes in the area? "It's growing by leaps and bounds," said Frank O'Connell, a retired Attleboro teacher and lacrosse umpire for the last eight years, of the sport's expanding appeal across southeastern Massachusetts.

"When I first started, Mansfield was the only school in the Hockomock League with a team, and that was a JV team," he said. "Now the only school in the league that doesn't have a team is Stoughton, I believe."

Lacrosse is one of the fastest growing high school sports in the country because of its fast pace and similarities to soccer, another favorite among young athletes, and southeastern Massachusetts is no exception to this trend. Teams are springing up across the area for kids in elementary school through the high school level. Where there isn't an established team, longtime lacrosse fans and newcomers are working together to fill the gaps.

One example is the work that Nancy Anderson-Semple, Tom Sheerin, Caroline Wiseman and the girls involved in Bishop Feehan High School's new lacrosse program have put in throughout this past school year. Last week marked the end of the first season for both the boys' and girls' teams and from all accounts, the first year was a great one.

Anderson-Semple grew up in Needham, where lacrosse has been an established recreational program for the past 30 years. She and six of her 10 siblings grew up playing, and loving, the sport. But when she and her husband moved to Attleboro and looked to register their daughter Cori - now a freshman at Feehan - to play in a league, they learned that their favorite sport was not as prevalent in Bristol County. They were excited to hear that the Triboro Titans were launching a girls' program in the spring of 2004. The Titans had started a boys' program as part of the Mass Bay Youth Lacrosse League (MBYLL) in 2003. The Titans began with three teams of about 20 players each. The initial response to the program, however, was not overly encouraging.

"The first year, we really had to push to get people," said Sheerin, president of the Titans. "We called people and asked them to play. As a matter of fact, the original phone call was to me, asking if my son wanted to play. I said 'sure,' and they said that I would be coaching him."

Once kids started to play, they became hooked and the sport began to grow locally. This season, the Titans' boys program fielded 10 teams, with about 200 players total. About the same number is expected for 2008.

Anderson-Semple became involved with the Titans in 2004 when Cori started playing for the inaugural under-13 Triboro team. Though she came in expecting to be just a sideline observer, she was quickly sucked into the program.

"They had the girls in the center of the gym," Anderson-Semple recalled about Cori's first practice. "The men coaching them were showing them how to do the boys' faceoff down on the floor. I was a parent sitting on the side saying, 'excuse me, we don't do that in girls' lacrosse. It's a draw.' So I came out and showed them. From that point on, they pulled me into it and I started coaching."

When it was time for Anderson-Semple to decide where to send Cori for high school, playing lacrosse was a factor. At the time, neither Feehan nor Attleboro High had a team. The process of forming a team had yet to begin at AHS, while Feehan had some interest but issues such as available fields to be overcome.

"(Paul) O'Boy, the athletic director at Feehan, told me that a team was probably two or three years away," said Anderson-Semple.

The parents were not willing to wait that long. A meeting was held with incoming principal Bill Runey last fall, and a formal proposal for the program was submitted.

"My initial impression was that this was an excellent opportunity to have more students involved in a quality athletic program," Runey said. "The program earned rave reviews from the parents and the students involved. They had been waiting quite awhile for this. Neither (the girls' nor the boys') program would have gotten anywhere without Tom Sheerin."

After the school accepted this proposal to field both boys' and girls' teams on the club level for this year, Anderson-Semple and the other parents turned to the students to see if they could garner enough interest. They received an overwhelming response: 87 girls and 53 boys signed up to play. "When there are 900 kids in the school and you have 120 of them playing lacrosse, that says something," said Sheerin.

It sent the message to Feehan's administration to put lacrosse on a faster track. Though Runey was receptive to the idea of forming the program, and remains a strong supporter of it, there were many logistical questions to answer before the teams could take the field.

"We were very open to it," said O'Boy, of starting the program. "We wanted to start it on a club basis because we weren't sure of exactly how much interest there would be. We suspected there would be considerable, and we were right."

The first thing to consider was location. What do you do with 87 girls and no assigned field? As of right now, there is really no space at Feehan available for either team to practice on or hold games on a full-time basis. Anderson-Semple, who has spearheaded this project from the beginning, turned to Sheerin for help in answering this one. He offered the use of Horton Field, where the Titans play their home games, and the equipment they store onsite. Since both the boys and girls needed to use this field, they alternated between practicing there and on a small strip of grass adjacent to the school's baseball diamond.

"We are exploring options to have the team practice at a location more proximate to the campus next year," said Runey. "We have been very fortunate that Dennis Walsh, the recreation director in Attleboro, has been very helpful in providing a field, though we are making efforts to bring them closer, if not on campus."

The lack of a true home field did not seem to affect the girls in a negative way.

"The first time I picked up a stick, we were in a parking lot a half-mile away from the school and it was probably the best time I've ever had playing sports," said senior Kathleen Boyland, who had never played before this spring.

"The next hurdle for the program was a lack of funding. Since only 10 or 12 girls came into the program with any prior experience, the majority of the athletes did not own sticks or goggles. The school stepped in and paid for 40 reversible pinnies to use in games, but it was up to the players to pay for their own equipment. The Semples donated enough equipment to outfit two goalies along with two nets.

The players were also responsible for finding their own transportation to games. In some instances, this meant that whoever could find a ride on gameday would get the chance to compete against other programs.

Organization was another issue that had to be settled quickly. With more than 80 girls and only three coaches - Anderson-Semple, Pam Sheerin and Wiseman, a teacher at Feehan - it would have been easy for the program to get out of hand. The solution was to form six teams, each identified by a color (green, yellow, white, blue, pink and black), with each comprised of girls in various grades and with mixed levels of experience so that no one squad would dominate the others. Anderson-Semple also formed a red "power" team, culling the best players to compete against area schools and under-15 teams.

Scheduling proved to be one of the biggest problems the league would face in its first season. Since high school seasons often make their schedules up to a year in advance, many teams did not have room on their calendars to play Feehan this season.

"We were scrambling to get anything," Anderson-Semple said. "We were playing nights, weekends, whatever we could get." Feehan got games with North Attleboro, Sharon and Cumberland, winning the latter two contests.

"It was incredible to know that this was our first year playing and we could do it," said Boyland. "The fact that we had it in ourselves to beat a team that had been playing together, it's great. We had the heart, we had the coaches, we had the support, and nothing could stop us."

To supplement their interscholastic matches and to give the girls as much game experience as possible, the teams played several under-15 teams and played two intramural games per week.

"They really got into it," said Anderson-Semple. "They were wearing bandannas, different colored clothes. They had war paint on them, all that kind of stuff."

The enthusiasm for the program has led many of the girls to ask what will happen next season. As only three of the players were seniors, the majority are expected to return next spring. Anderson-Semple is looking to restructure the league slightly to divide the girls into skill levels that might make the program more effective. She has also secured verbal agreements from the coaches of opposing teams from this year to play Feehan again in 2008.

O'Boy has confirmed that the program will most likely continue on the club level next year, eventually reaching varsity status.

"The intention is to keep the program on a club basis until we are able to get a little more stable field situation," he said. "At the current time, our athletic fields are being used to the maximum."

Runey is also looking to keep the sport operating on a club basis for at least the first few seasons. He is also hesitant to put a strict timeline on the program, but refers to it as a possible five-year plan to transition to a varsity team.

In addition to maintaining programs at the high school level, the parents are looking to expand the sport's appeal among younger children. This year, 50 sticks were donated to Attleboro's gym teachers to rotate among the city's elementary and middle schools. During a recent professional day, some of the lacrosse coaches held a clinic for the teachers to educate them about the sport and to encourage them to include it in their curriculum. Though the middle schools were receptive, the elementary schools in Attleboro have yet to incorporate lacrosse.

As the initial response at Feehan has indicated, lacrosse is quickly becoming a widespread alternative to traditional spring sports like tennis and baseball for boys, or softball for girls. In fact, a number of the girls chose to learn lacrosse instead of playing softball this year.

O'Connnell believes that it is the team aspect that draws in so many players.

"The beauty of the sport is that everyone is involved," he said. "You have to have a well-balanced team."

Anderson-Semple and the Feehan lacrosse players concur on this point.

"It was nice because everyone kind of helped each other along," said junior Emma Creeden, one of the team's captains for next season. "The color teams helped to build this bond because with 86 girls, you might not know everyone."

"There was never a time any of us felt like we weren't part of a team," said Boyland. "I miss it already."

Based on the turnout for Feehan's team and the Titans' growing popularity among younger children, lacrosse is proving to be a viable spring option for kids who are truly interested in playing a pure team sport. There are a lot of rules to learn, but that hasn't stopped hundreds of young athletes from picking up a stick and taking the field.

"It's great because there are so many girls who joined on a whim and now they're playing in summer leagues or they want to play in college," said Creeden. "We really have a love, a passion for the game."