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New Jersey Indoor Lacrosse League
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Get To Know The New Jersey Indoor Lacrosse League

This fall, men’s box lacrosse has come to New Jersey in a brand new form and if this fledgling league can take hold, it could potentially do a lot for American box lacrosse in the near future. Proximity to New York City and Philly, a great facility, and some dedicated founders make the New Jersey Indoor Lacrosse League a league to keep an eye on, and maybe even join! You wanted box lacrosse, now you have it.

Good 10 Running up field

Andrew Wasik has been running the show out at Turf City on Saturday mornings from 10am until noon, and a solid core of guys with NLL, MLL, NALL, and PLL experience have been out there getting after it. The league is not just ex-pros though, and also sees recent college graduates and longtime men’s club players. It’s a good mix of guys who play hard and love box lacrosse.

New Jersey Indoor Lacrosse League

The New Jersey Indoor Lacrosse League

I got to catch up with Andrew Wasik last week on the status of the NJILL, and he gave me the following update:

The NJILL is going well and had a solid turnout last Saturday. We had 2 great goalies and about 16 runners. Ideally would like 30+ runners there every session so we can pick up the pace of play.

The facility is perfect and we have the support of Turf City to continue to run abox lax leagues on a weekly bases for the next year. The schedule will change over the winter but will be more favorable with dates/times come spring and summer 2015.

The facility is ideal for box lacrosse with a fill size rink, boards, glass, benches, penalty boxes, score board, shot clocks and 4×4 box goalies.  We also have an experience box lax ref at every session. The field turf is brand new and lined for box lax. Turf City also has locker rooms and showers on site.

Good 13 Wasik

Why box lacrosse in New Jersey? Wasik answered that too:

We organized this league because we love playing box lacrosse and there is no place to play legit box lax in the Tristate area. We wanted to give laxers  in the area an opportunity to play box and learn the correct way to play. The NJILL will be the premier men’s box lacrosse league in New Jersey and the Tristate area.

The league is open to all levels of players right now. So far we have had players with experience in the NLL, PLL, NALL, MLL.  We also had many guys who have never played box before but eager to give it a try. Currently we are running pick up sessions on Saturday morning from 10am-noon for $10.

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I also wanted to know what the final goal was for the NJILL.

Eventually I would like to have a 4+ team league with a 10 game schedule and playoffs.

Ultimately, we would love to set up weekend a tournament with the other successful box leagues in the northeast. The BBLL, BILL and Philly box league have all produced top level players and I think a regional tournament would be a huge success.

New Jersey Indoor Lacrosse League

How about youth lacrosse? Could there be a feeder system put in place to really supercharge New Jersey Box Lacrosse?

Last winter and incoming winter i worked closely with Tristate lacrosse and their Eagle Box Lacrosse league to develop their youth box program. Tristate his a very long history of developing some of the top field lacrosse players in NJ. Some of the top lacrosse players in the world grown up playing box lacrosse in Canada. We see know there is great potential for youth players to develop their skills by playing box lacrosse.   Last winter Tristate ran clinics every Monday night for high school and middle school players. In late January we too a U15 to a box tourney in Philly where we went 4-1 on the weekend.

We’re really excite about the opportunity to introduce box lacrosse for the Tristate area and the NJILL to be a premier box lacrosse league.

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Check out the NJILL website and give them a follow on social media to stay up to date on their progress!
WWW.NJILL.COM
Instagram @nj_indoor_lacrosse_league
Facebook Njindoor Lacrosseleague
Twitter  @NJILLBOXLAX