Among Oregon high schools, there are 33 boys teams and 22 girls teams, although the sport is not sanctioned by the Oregon School Activities Association. The teams are considered club-level and governed by the Oregon High School Lacrosse Association, complete with regionalized divisions and state playoffs.

    The majority of the teams are in the Portland area 23 of 33 for the boys, 17 of 22 for the girls with the rest mostly around Eugene and Salem. Roseburg, Hood River and Hermiston are the lacrosse outposts.

    "If Hermiston can have a team, dang it, Vancouver should have a team," Bishop said.

    As for Washington, the number of youth, junior high and high school teams across the state has grown from 43 to 99 during the last five years, according to the Sports Illustrated article.

    "It's bigger in Seattle than in Portland," said Tim Goodspeed of Brush Prairie, who coaches the Sunset team that includes his son, Jake.

    There are two other county high school students known to cross the Columbia River to play lacrosse Phil Phuong, a Columbia River junior who also competes for Sunset, and Thomas Meechum, a Prairie senior on the Lincoln High of Portland team.

    Kings Way Christian, a private school located off N.E. 78th Street in Vancouver, plans to field the first high school lacrosse team in Clark County when it expands to include grades nine through 12 starting next fall.

    "It takes someone to bust a move," Bishop said. "I think Kings Way saw an opportunity to set itself apart, not only academically, but here's a sport that they could compete in. I mean, it's very hard for them to have a football team."

    The model Kings Way will try to mimic is at Oregon Episcopal School, a small private school in southwest Portland where lacrosse is huge. Of the 115 boys attending OES this year, 53 turned out to join the state's defending champion, according to the Portland Tribune.

    Tim Goodspeed has long been involved in the Portland-area lacrosse scene. After growing up playing the sport in upstate New York, he moved to the area in 1976. He promptly joined Portland's only adult club team, which competed against Seattle squads and college teams from around the region.

    "By the time I quit playing for the club team" in the mid-1980s, Goodspeed said, "there were three teams in the Portland area. It had started to grow."

    That growth has gone from steady to startling in recent years, but Goodspeed isn't sure how Vancouver high schools will fit into the equation.

    "Vancouver would have to go through the same kind of growth that Portland did, in order to have teams that could play each other," said Goodspeed, who is in his second year coaching Sunset .

    The closest Washington high school teams are near Olympia. Until Oregon lacrosse gains sanctioning from the OSAA which, Goodspeed said, "sounds to me like it's still a few years away" there is the possibility of Vancouver teams maybe getting into the Oregon High School Lacrosse Association.

    "When we reach the varsity level, we hope the Oregon system will let us in," said Bishop, whose Kings Way squad plays in both a Beaverton and West Linn-Lake Oswego league.

    The details are still to be determined, but now that lacrosse has trickled across the Columbia River to Clark County, it figures to take the local sports scene by storm.