Lacrosse has generally belonged to an exclusive group. That's true even in Baltimore, one of the country's lacrosse hotbeds. The men's college lacrosse championships will be played in Baltimore this year for the first time, beginning with Division I semifinals on Saturday at M&T Bank Stadium.

After the ref's whistle shrieked, Leigh McDonald Hall squinted and scanned the field at Patterson Park for casualties.

It was just as she feared.

A freckled girl was slumping toward the sidelines, her blond ponytail limp, her eyes welling.

"Oh god. Did someone else get hurt?" Hall mumbled to herself. Then she sighed heavily, and shook her head. "Uh boy, the county comes to the city."

It was a rough game for the Garrison Forest girls who came out to challenge the hot-pink-shirted Pacas of William Paca Elementary School - the city's only elementary girls lacrosse team. Parts of the Baltimore County private school's car pool got lost on the way into East Baltimore, the team played the entire game without a goalie, and at least three Grizzlies were injured.

But it was an even tougher game for the Pacas, who, despite all that, still lost the third game of their four-game season to Garrison Forest - this time on their home turf.

But when all the equipment is counted and packed away for next year, the Pacas' wins vs. their losses aren't really what's important.

Instead, thanks to the sponsorship of Garrison Forest School and donations from around the region, this spring these 26 girls from one of the city's lowest-performing schools became pre-teen pioneers.

By being the only city elementary team to play a sport typically dominated by private school programs, the girls have learned many lessons about sportsmanship, team-building and the societal inequities they'll have to overcome to win at this game - and in life.

`They're cheating'

"Coach Hall, Coach Hall, they're cheating!" one of the Paca attack-girls yelled at a recent game, running off the field, eyes fiery.

"No! No!" Hall yelled back. "I don't want to hear any of that. You guys have been off-sides all day!"

Every outburst like that is an opportunity to teach for Hall, who is coach of Garrison Forest's middle school lacrosse team and approached Paca's assistant principal about coaching a team at the city school. But privately, she agrees with her player.

It's not that the referee favors the other team, as the Pacas believe. Nor have the Garrison Forest or the St. Paul's girls been playing underhanded.

But the Pacas have been cheated.

They're years behind the teams they compete against, in knowledge of the sport, in skill level, in experience playing on any organized sports team. Because there are no fields lined for lacrosse close by, the Pacas mostly practice in the auditorium and play at nearby Patterson Park. Most of their equipment is donated. Many of the girls share mouth guards.

"Lacrosse is one of the fastest-growing sports in the United States, and it's spreading through other countries," Hall said. "Meantime, we've got all these kids in Baltimore City who are very capable and strong athletes, and they're missing out."

Lacrosse has generally belonged to an exclusive group. That's true even in Baltimore, one of the country's lacrosse hotbeds. The men's college lacrosse championships will be played in Baltimore this year for the first time, beginning with Division I semifinals on Saturday at M&T Bank Stadium.

Albeit slowly, the game has started to expand. More and more public schools have begun offering the sport in recent years. Suburban recreation leagues have added lacrosse to their spring lineups, and more girls and women's teams have been cropping up.

But in the public schools of cities such as Baltimore, lacrosse might as well be jai alai. Hall won't say it's prejudice that has kept the game so cordoned off.

The Paca girls will. But they say that won't keep them from succeeding in the sport.

"We're not in those days of long ago, of Dr. Martin Luther King and slaves and stuff," said 10-year-old Doretta O'Brien, whose wild puff of hair is often a blur on the lacrosse field. "We're in a new time, and we have to move past that. We can do anything we put our minds to."

Ironically, some of the prejudice comes from the girls themselves.

At their first away game, upon arriving at St. Paul's, 11-year- old Gessicha Stevens remembers the murmurs from her teammates.

"When they saw them, they were like, `Oh, we're gonna lose. They're white girls. They're gonna dust us,'" she said.

Since then, they've learned that the pitfalls they face when it comes to scoring have more to do with where the girls live and go to school than what color their skin is.

"I noticed that the other schools are a lot bigger. They have more fields," Gessicha said. "They can just practice any time. They don't have to wait for someone to walk them three or four blocks [to Patterson Park]."

"We're not used to the grass. Some of us only have on tennis [shoes]. They have on cleats," Doretta said.

"They have more practices. They pull together as a team more," said 10-year-old Nicole Powell.

In fact, team-building and sportsmanship have been two of the Pacas' major challenges. The girls fight among themselves. They yell back at the officials. They argue with Hall.

The girls admit they have "attitude." They know they need to curb it. But they just want to win so badly, to prove to people that they can do it.

And Hall and William Paca Assistant Principal Brenda Jennings try to take into account the environment that many of the girls come from, which teaches them to be aggressive, to fight for what they want.

"We have to talk to them all the time," said Jennings, whose teen- age daughter plays lacrosse at Garrison Forest and helped Hall start the team this year, "about how you can't let the goal of winning color your conduct."

A tough loss

The girls lost their final game against St. Paul's yesterday. It was a hard loss - leaving the girls with an 0-4 record - but the Pacas did better at keeping their attitudes in check and scored twice, Hall said.
Lacrosse enthusiasts are thrilled to see what Hall and Jennings have started at William Paca.

"The game has been slow to expand to underserved communities because of the significant resources involved," said Steve Stenerson, executive director of Baltimore-based US Lacrosse, the national governing body for both men's and women's lacrosse. "And in many of the communities that need a program like this most, the resources are the scarcest."

No one knows that better than Jennings and Hall.

Nearly all of the Pacas' equipment has come from donations, including a rental van to take the girls to opposing teams' prep schools, paid for by Ravens coach Brian Billick.

Jennings collects and washes the team's donated T-shirts after each game so none will be lost, and Hall has had to buy spray paint and measuring tape to mark the city's playing fields herself.

It's a lot of work and begging, a lot of frustration. But Jennings and Hall do it gladly.

The experience was valuable both to the Paca players and to the Garrison middle-school players who also serve as junior coaches under Hall.

"They were stunned at the fact that William Paca has 800 students and no proper playground, no grass," Hall said. "I also think it's good for them to see what another educational experience is like, to see what the inner-city kids live with every day."

The Paca-Garrison partnership is nearly perfect.

Hall, who is also a field hockey coach at Garrison Forest middle school, knew the benefits of organized sports for young girls and loves to coach. Jennings cares every day for a population of city children - 93 percent of whom come from low-income families - and ran track and played field hockey herself.
Together, they decided to bring lacrosse to third-, fourth- and fifth-grade girls - attitude and all.
They've got a long way to go - both the coaches and the team members.

But one day, the girls said - given more experience, more opportunities to practice and access to better fields - they'll be able to play the game just as well as the suburban girls.

"Or maybe even better," Doretta said.