An R.F. Staples School student is heading south of the border this fall to play field lacrosse at an American college.
Eighteen-year-old Britannie Ouimet received a scholarship to play at Limestone College in Gaffney, South Carolina. Ouimet was scouted last summer while competing at tournaments in Maryland and Virginia.
The scholarship was a bit of a shock for the lacrosse player who had only been playing the field version two months before the tournaments.
“My first practice would have been the first week in May and then the second week of July I played my first game, so it’s pretty quick,” she said.
The scholarship will cover two-thirds of her expenses, though she didn’t disclose the amount.
Ouimet has been playing box lacrosse — arena lacrosse in other words — for the last eight years, but admitted that field lacrosse is new territory for her.
“The women’s game is totally different from the box lacrosse game,” she said. “No equipment other than goggles, different kind of stick. Going from playing box lacrosse to field lacrosse was really weird because there’s no hitting. Hip checking and defence are definitely different.”
Unlike box lacrosse, field lacrosse is not a full-contact sport. Field lacrosse also has no pocket on the stick and games are played on a 100-yard field with 12 players on the field. With that in mind, she’ll be sticking to the attack position until she learns the rules.
“It’s still the same idea of putting the ball in the goal but definitely the way you go about that, the offensive schemes, it’s a lot slower paced since it’s not in such a confined area,” she said.
Ouimet first got into the sport at 10 years old because of a friend.
Her parents agreed, though she said they had “no idea what they were getting themselves into.”
For the next five years she played with the boys in Westlock followed by a year on Spruce Grove’s midget girls team Parkland Posse and then a couple of years on Team Alberta.
“I’ve built my skill with different coaches, different teammates and stuff like that. As far as my favourite part, I love scoring goals, setting up teammates and definitely in the box game, the fast pace, always have to be thinking, moving — it’s definitely fun for me.”
It was actually an old Team Alberta teammate that phoned up Ouimet last May to see if she wanted to join a field lacrosse team and go play in Maryland and Virginia.
“At the time I was like, ‘oh sure,’” she said. “I had no idea what I was getting myself into. The team was based out of Vimy Ridge Academy in Edmonton so I went, joined the team, and we practiced for about two months.”
In July, the team went to the United States to play in a couple of tournaments, including the Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association (IWLCA)’s Capital Cup.
“Capital Cup was like fields packed with girls playing lacrosse. Plenty of college coaches there watching. From there one of the coaches got in contact with me and yeah, that’s how it went down.”
Two schools approached Ouimet in the fall and she visited them both over the Thanksgiving weekend. On that trip she knew right away which school she wanted to go to.
At the end of October she made her verbal commitment to Limestone College, an IWLCA Division II school, and signed letter of intent at the beginning of November.
“For one, their lacrosse program has a good track record, they’ve been to a couple national finals in the last six or seven years, they’ve won their conference just about every year in the past decade,” she noted.
“Academics-wise (the schools were) pretty much equal. That wasn’t what swayed me too much, but just the feel of it, the feel of the team, I just felt that would be a better fit for me.”
Ouimet will be joining four other Canadians and an incoming freshman from Ontario on the Limestone Angels when she moves down in mid-August.
The entire fall season will be learning the systems and getting adjusted, so she is looking forward to everything.
Until then, she plans to throw the ball around in the backyard and play some summer ball in Edmonton.
“I’m kind of going in blind,” she said. “In Alberta, field lacrosse is just starting to grow, whereas the States it’s huge. So just getting to meet knew girls and learn the sport better — I don’t even know all the rules yet — so just adjusting to that and moving away from home and moving on to bigger and better things.”
