Your Sport: Reese Walker heads budding lacrosse program - Fayetteville Observer

Reese Walker was a third grader focused on basketball stardom when a friend's father suggested trying a sport totally foreign to her.

"I was playing basketball for my church when Wes (Davis) told me I should give lacrosse a try,'' Walker said. "I had never seen a game, never used a stick and didn't know anything about it, really.''

Davis is a lacrosse enthusiast and former college player at East Carolina. He teamed with the Fayetteville-Cumberland Recreation Department to start a girls' lacrosse program in the spring of 2012 and was constantly on the lookout for new talent.

In Walker, Davis found the perfect recruit.

"You use a lot of the same techniques in lacrosse that you use in basketball ... hand-eye coordination, setting picks, shooting on a goal,'' Davis said. "Reese was a top basketball player, so I thought she could become really good at lacrosse, too.''

Rapid growth

Flash forward four years and the now 12-year-old Walker is a budding star on what is a rapidly growing local lacrosse scene.

Davis said 19 girls signed up for that first recreation department spring season in 2012. This spring, 106 girls were playing the sport at the recreation, travel and high school levels in Cumberland County, according to Davis.

Walker, now a seventh-grader at Max Abbott Middle School, got her start playing in the recreation department program for the Fayetteville Flames.

"I was not that good at the beginning,'' Walker said. "I had to work at it. I had the speed and the footwork, but it was hard to catch the ball with that little stick.''

In lacrosse, players advance the ball by passing and catching it with a stick with a small netting or basket attached at one end. Mastering that skill has helped Walker become a top-flight midfielder for both the Flames and the Cary-based Carolina Flight.

One of the biggest moments of Walker's budding career occurred while playing with the Flight in the Sun and Surf tournament June 18-19 at Virginia Beach, Virginia.

With the score tied and the game in sudden death overtime, Walker intercepted a pass and fired home the winning goal.

"She is one of our up-and-coming stars,'' Davis said. "If she keeps improving year by year, she could be playing in college some day.''

First, Walker hopes to play at the high school level. Thanks to the cooperation between Davis, the Fayetteville-Cumberland Recreation Department and local high schools, both Jack Britt and Terry Sanford established girls' club teams last spring that are eligible to compete in N.C. High School Athletic Association playoffs. Jack Britt also fielded junior varsity and varsity teams for boys.

Walker's ultimate goal is to one day play for a college program.

"I'd like to go to UNC to play lacrosse,'' Walker said. "That's my goal.''

The Tar Heels won their second NCAA women's lacrosse championship in four years last May.

Until then, Walker will continue to perfect her skills and help grow the sport in Fayetteville.

"I just like everything about it,'' Walker said. "It's really a lot like basketball, which used to be my number one sport. But now lacrosse is number one.''