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Sports

At CCBC, Teaching Lacrosse Internationally

Cardinals women's lacrosse coach Tom Taylor hosted a team from Japan on Saturday.

Anyone who plays, coaches or writes about lacrosse, still a niche sport in most of the country, loves to say how the game is quickly spreading and is perhaps the fastest growing sport in the world.

Saturday at CCBC Catonsville, that theory may have been given some merit.

The Cardinals women’s lacrosse team hosted Nihon University of Japan for a clinic and scrimmage, a semi-annual event that Catonsville coach Tom Taylor says he looks forward to.

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“They’re really, really receptive,” Taylor said of the Japanese players. “They’re really an exceptionally nice group of people. They’re so appreciative of anything and everything you do for them. It’s amazing. For our kids to experience some of their culture (is great).”

Taylor said he was contacted several years by Zag Lacrosse, a company that arranges for teams to go on international lacrosse tours. His program and the company have developed a good relationship, he said, and now he looks forward to having foreign teams visit Catonsville.

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The biggest difference in the Japanese game is access to equipment and in-game strategy, Taylor said.

“The game is growing in Japan. They have a national team that plays in the women’s World Cup for lacrosse,” Taylor said. “They’re pretty good, they’re good athletes but they lack equipment, they lack proper teaching. It’s a relatively new sport for them. There’s not a whole lot of people available over there to teach them the proper technique to play lacrosse.

“They don’t run set plays like we do, they don’t have set defenses like we do. It’s a little bit different game over there than we’re accustomed to over here.”

So, once a year, Taylor runs his team and a visiting Japanese team through lacrosse drills and then arranges for a scrimmage, complete with game officials.

Taylor is happy to help, but said it’s not like he and his team aren’t getting something out of the day, which ends with a cookout.

“It’s just a lot of fun,” he said. “Not a whole lot of teams get to play international teams. We’re very fortunate to be able to do this.”

Now, this week’s list:

Quote of the Week:

“You never know for freshmen, their first college experience. There’s a significant ‘wow’ factor.”

– UMBC baseball coach John Jancuska after pitcher Jon Cohn, making his first college start, couldn’t make it past the first inning in a 10-5 loss.

Line of the Week: 26 points (8 of 13), 13 rebounds and three steals for UMBC junior guard Michelle Kurowski, who led the Retrievers to a 74-65 win in the America East Conference Tournament quarterfinals Friday.

Top Tweet:

“WBB: #UMBC shot just 16 percent (4-for-25) in 1st half, but made all 8 FTs. Brown & Colabella have 7pts each to lead Retrievers #AEBBChamps” 

-- @UMBCAthletics during halftime of the women’s basketball semifinal, which the team lost 66-48 to fourth-seeded Hartford, ending UMBC's NCAA Tournament hopes.

For the Record: UMBC senior Michael Christmas broke the school record in the men’s 800-meter run with a time of 1:52.78 at Day One of the IC4A/ECAC Indoor Championships in Boston.

Player to Watch: UMBC softball second baseman Lauren Brummell leads the team in batting (.419), on-base percentage (.486) and slugging (.484) through nine games.

Game to Watch: UMBC men’s lacrosse plays No. 8 Johns Hopkins at M&T Bank Stadium in the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic Saturday, March 12 at 4 p.m. The Retrievers (1-2) have never beaten the Blue Jays (3-1).

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