It’s a game you might have tried in a grade-school physical-education class, or seen played by youngsters on a field at Marymoor Park in Redmond.

Although it may not be as common a spring sport as baseball or soccer, lacrosse has found a niche among youths in Northshore, largely due to the work of Steve Wisman, who founded the Northshore Lacrosse Club in 2005.

Wisman, the club’s head coach who has played competitive lacrosse since the fifth grade, says that starting kids young has led to the solidarity of his program, which now competes in Division I after winning the state title two years ago in Division II.

“The growth at the youth level is what is fostering the growth at the high-school level,” he explained. “I’m still getting new kids at high school (four this year), but when I started the youth program here, that has grown into what we have now.”

The game itself, played on a grass field, seems like a unique blend of a number of different sports, with a lot of strategy as far as offensive and defensive formations, to put a team in the best position to score a goal.

“It’s really fast, the strategies are like basketball, yet it’s higher-scoring than hockey and soccer, but has elements from both,” said Wisman about what makes lacrosse appealing. “There’s a lot of running, and a lot of movement. Everyone’s always participating in something.”

Wisman’s son, Taylor, a senior at Inglemoor High and team leader, added, “You can move the ball up and down the field really quick, and there’s not much waiting around like in baseball.”

And if all else fails, there’s nothing wrong with letting off a bit of steam out on the field against your well-padded opponents.

“The guys really like to hit each other with the sticks,” Wisman laughed. “We always get a few football guys out, but there not really that much hitting. They still like it anyway.”

The big leagues

Not only has Northshore Lacrosse moved up to the top division, but the club also split up and created a Woodinville team because of the sheer volume of players a couple seasons ago.

Like a star-studded minor-league team moving up to the majors, Wisman’s club struggled at first and clawed its way into the playoffs last year — its first season in Division I — and lost to Bainbridge Island in the first round.

“The caliber of teams is a lot higher, the programs we’re against have been around a lot longer and are well-established,” Wisman said on the new league. “Teams like Mercer Island, they have three seventh- and eighth-grade teams that feed into one high-school team. They’re like machines.”

Still, to win the state championship at any level in the just the program’s fourth year of existence, and second year of fielding a high-school team, was special for the longtime coach.

“It was absolutely fabulous,” Wisman recalled. “It was amazing, playing at Memorial Stadium was really neat with all the fans there and all the yelling and screaming. I never thought we’d get there, so I was in awe the whole time, and so were my players.”

All in the family

This year, Taylor and Wisman’s younger son, Foster, a junior, are leading the Northshore offense.

Taylor is currently second in the league in total points per game at 5.75, and Foster second in goals scored with 14 in four games.

Boding well for Wisman’s squad this season (2-2-0 at press time) is that it is by far the most experienced he’s ever fielded. A lot of the kids that joined his youth program six years ago at the club’s inception are now upperclassmen.

“I have eight seniors this year, that’s the most I’ve ever had by far,” Wisman said. “I have a lot of freshmen who are mostly JV players, but they’re looking good, too. They’re going to come up and feed the varsity team.”

Though it may be a tall task for Northshore to take down powerhouses like Mercer Island and Bellevue (9-0 this season combined), Wisman and his players are confident that they can make the playoffs once again, with the hope of bettering last season’s bow-out in the quarterfinals.

“My goal is to win at least 50 percent… if we do better than that, I’ll be happy,” Wisman said. “I’m hoping for more, of course.”

Added Taylor, “We’d like to make the playoffs, but our biggest goal is to just try to get to the state semifinals. We’ll see what we can do from there.”