Congratulations to Gamespeed’s Jackie Gilbert. The only Californian and person from the West coast to make the US Women’s Under 19 Lacrosse team. Sher made it on a team that is typically dominated by players form the East coast. She has trained tirelessly for the past couple years and put everything into making this team. A great honor and testament to her work. Way to represent Cali!
Her mom emailed the good news:
Hi Aaron,
Sorry not to write sooner but we were occupied with family business. We wanted to let you know Jackie became the first female Californian to make a USLacrosse team – yeah! It was unbelievably tough and the talent deep. She made a brilliant move at the last minute and changed positions in response to a tryout disadvantage and was able to overcome and play extremely well! It was so nerve wrecking!!
She was naturally exhausted!
I will send you the clubs press release soon.
Cheers,
Jereen Gilbert
Jackie Gilbert Selected to Women’s U-19 USA Team
Jackie Gilbert, a girl’s lacrosse player from Pleasanton, California made history recently at the U.S. Under-19 Tryouts in Baltimore, Maryland. Gilbert, a rising senior at Amador Valley High School and a top player for the BearLax Club team program, is the first California native selected to a national team in Women’s Lacrosse. Gilbert was chosen as a defender for the 25 member squad that will train to represent the United States at the Under-19 World Cup in July 2015.
The Under-19 Team was chosen after a series of tryouts which began in the spring of 2014 with 800 applicants. The training squad was finalized after a rigorous three day event at Stevenson University in July, and a group of 18 will be selected after training sessions in January 2015. The roster to-date includes 9 players from New York, 4 from Maryland, 1 from Massachusetts, 5 from Pennsylvania, 1 from New Jersey, 2 from Florida, 1 from Connecticut, 1 from New Hampshire, and 1 from California. The U.S. Under-19 team goes to Scotland to defend Gold medals at the last four World Cups.
Gilbert represents the rapidly rising talent level in an area that has been experiencing exponential growth in participation at the youth and high school levels. In the past 10 years the number of California girls’ CIF and club high school programs has more than doubled to almost 200 in the state. In the Northern California Junior Lacrosse Association, the number of girls’ teams increased from 51 in 2006 to 141 in 2014 while the number of female players almost tripled from 1,000 in 2006 to almost 2,700 in 2014. For women there are a number of NCAA programs in California that girls can aspire to compete for, including those in northern California: Cal, Saint Mary’s, Stanford, and UC Davis. Lacrosse was an Olympic sport in the early 1900s, but currently the highest level of competition is a World Championship that occurs every four years at both the Under 19 and Senior levels.
