Holderness fifth-grader Hazel Girard loves lacrosse.
While outdoor lacrosse is great in the spring, this past winter, she got a taste of something different. Through the NH Hot Shots box lacrosse program, Hazel gets to hit opponents hard.
Between training in Hampstead, traveling to Connecticut and Pennsylvania for regional tournaments and playing with teammates from all over, she’s grown into a new player.
“I love that sport,” she said. “It’s just the physical side, I feel like I don’t get in field lacrosse and it’s a unique side of lacrosse. Because it’s amazing how we can play how boys play.”
She thinks she and her teammates can take the tough better than even some of the boys can.
The sport is played in an area similar to an ice rink, but on solid ground, and six-on-six, including a goalie. It’s characterized by its physical nature, fast passing, quick thinking and sprints.
Girard started playing lacrosse in first grade but joined the box lacrosse program just a few years ago. Since then, the team has grown and she’s grown with it.
Part of the program’s continued success is the big-sister-little-sister pairings that NH Hot Shots founder and coach Kristin Tracy of Plymouth implemented.
“It was really great for the group to see the girls coming together as a team a lot more, because this would be their second year together, and the coaching staff does a really great job of uniting the girls,” said Cat Brennan, Hazel’s mother.
Kristin Tracy, who started Hot Shots four years ago and the box lacrosse two years ago, said her program has reached heightened success for a Granite State team. Box lacrosse is particularly popular in Canada, where it first started.
Despite only training a few times a month because her players also play club lacrosse, the box team just keeps winning.
In January, the Hot Shots team won its first championship at the Connecticut Box Lacrosse Championship Tournament. In February, they repeated as champions and won the Pennsylvania Box Lacrosse Championship Tournament, beating out opponents from across the country and Canada in the only two East Coast tournaments in the nation.
The program has attracted interest regionally, including girls from Texas, upstate New York and Massachusetts, but still has plenty of homegrown New Hampshire girls, too.
“I think in terms of growth nationally, I think we’re going to see a huge spike in it,” Tracy said. “Because I think people realize how beneficial it is for girls, especially just to have that level of physicality where they don’t get that in any other sport.”
Another player from the championship team, 13-year-old Ellie Grazioso of Plymouth, has seen those benefits in her game. She came into the program as a field lacrosse goalie but blossomed into a fearsome player on offense for the team.
Her father, Paul Grazioso, said it can be a little nerve-wracking to watch his daughter get hit in the sport but it’s equally as exciting to watch them. Best of all, he’s seen his daughter’s confidence grow by bounds and leaps.
“Definitely a lot more conditioning, but I had to learn I have to be more aggressive and run more,” Ellie Grazioso said. “I had to learn how to pass again and correctly shoot.”
Ellie and Hazel emphasized how nice the team culture is. Outside of the roughness in the box, the team grew close during the trips for tournaments with team dinners. Even though they’re from all over and don’t play club together, they feel like a little family that’s in on a secret.
For Tracy, it’s been an extremely rewarding experience. She has coached lacrosse for many years, between collegiate lacrosse at Brown, UMass and Plymouth State and club lacrosse at Granite State Elite, she hasn’t been a part of anything quite like the Hot Shots team.
“I still sort of preach the same thing is that these girls are really trailblazers in a sport that really wasn’t seen,” she said.
For more information, go to nhhotshots.sportngin.com