By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SALEM, Ore.– The Salem-area has a new Lacrosse Club in town for the offseason:
The Salem Lacrosse Club.
Saturday afternoon, at Salem Academy, the SLC had their first practice of the season. Led by Jacob Wolbaum, a former Lacrosse player from the Portland-Metro area playing at Aloha High School, Wolbaum saw a need.
A need for more options in the area to keep the local kids local and save on the travel to Portland to play club Lacrosse.
“When I noticed there’s two High School teams out here (the co-op teams of Sprague-South Salem, West Salem-McNary) and a youth program that has a team per-age group and there’s no Club team, I saw an opportunity to invest back into the community with the sport,” said Wolbaum, now a Vice Principal at Salem Academy and Director of the SLC. “The reality is this sport is on the decline a little bit since Covid and it sucks because this sport is one of the best sports ever. It’s a fun, fast-paced sport, it’s for everybody and that’s what we’re trying to do here.”
He brought in some local names. Wyatt Livengood, who coaches and plays at Western Oregon University and is a West Salem-grad. Sprague’s Blake Altman, who played Collegiately at Ohio Wesleyan University, McNary-grad Kaden Donahue, who just got done playing his junior year at Lees-McRae College and their Lacrosse team. Not to mention Brody LaFountaine, a Sprague-grad and a legend with the Olympian Lacrosse Program.
“It’s huge. When you get to bring in guys who are from the area who want to give back to the community, give back to it. That’s where the investment really set to grow from it and once these kids see, ‘oh Blake Altman went to Sprague, he plays at Ohio Wesleyan. Kaden played at McNary, he’s playing for one of the greatest players of all-time in John Grant Jr,” Wolbaum said. “Brody is a goat in the community of Sprague and he’s back here helping. You have Hunter (Harrison), Wyatt Livengood is a Head Coach at Western and played at West. All these guys wore the same jersey that they wore and that build-in the same buy-in of, ‘hey they are one of us’.”
Saturday served as more of a open-try-out as well as a practice. The squad will reconvene in June to prepare for the season ahead. The Salem Lacrosse Club will take part in the Rogue Valley Rising Tournament on June 27 and 28 before taking part in the The Skirmish PNW Tourney on July 11 and 12.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
