Strength of the team

Chris Jurado doesn’t mind a little pain, as long as he makes his team proud.

Jurado plays goalie for the Lake City High School lacrosse team, part of the North Idaho Lacrosse League.

Jurado tried basketball, wrestling and track before entering high school. He wrestled his freshman year, and when he sought out an alternative to track, he came across a lacrosse flier. He said he didn’t know anything about the sport until he saw a few video clips. After an introduction to the game, he heard the team needed a goalie and he offered to fill in.

“It was a like a dream come true,” said Dwight Emmons, coach. “Goalies are so hard to find.”

Goalies are often the target of a 5-ounce rubber ball that can travel nearly 90 mph.

Emmons said good goalies make the ball look like a beach ball, where bad goalies make it look like a golf ball. When he saw Jurado during one of his first games, he knew what he had.

“It was just like he was plucking candy out of the air,” he said. “That’s when I was like, ‘This kid is something special.’ ”

Emmons said Jurado is calm and collected under pressure and often quiets down when things get tough. Teams have 30 players that rotate in and out of the game, similar to hockey, except for the goalie. When goalies get riled up, it often breaks the team.

But Jurado said the team boosts his confidence with each goal and gives him the drive to save shots and make the team proud.

Now in his sophomore year, Jurado wishes he’d started sooner.

“I just want to give my all and watch people give their all,” Jurado said. “When everybody’s trying their hardest it just works out better and when you do lose, you know everybody gave their all.”

He said there’s little distraction when he’s on the field. When the ball’s coming toward him, there’s not much time to react and all he thinks about is keeping it from making the goal and letting the team down.

Jurado has felt the pressure of his position during a tie game last year in Riggins, Idaho, when the team lost by a point. He said he felt like he could have done more, but the coach stepped in and said it was the best game the team had ever played. From then on, he focused on getting better and practicing harder.

“I just kept working with it and got stronger and faster,” he said. “It’s looking pretty good right now.”

He said the game can be time-consuming, but he’s always ready to practice and work hard at playing his best. In addition to daily practice after school, he’s been in charge of rounding up the players for an informal summer league.

“I’m trying to really push people,” he said. “We’ve got some great potential on the team.”

He said the summer scrimmages started out as word-of-mouth and now about half the return players and some new players meet up on the field. He tries to get as many other kids to play instead of going home and doing nothing. Jurado said the phone calls and casual conversations with team members pays off with more practice time and experience for the team.

“I know the kids rally behind him because he’s the strength of the team,” Emmons said.

Jurado plans to continue playing through high school and hopes to play at the college level or major league lacrosse.

“When it got hard I just pushed myself as hard as I could go and good things came out of it,” he said. “There hasn’t been a reason to quit.”