The sport has been around for centuries - around longer than baseball, football and basketball.

It's been popular on the East Coast and has just in the past decade started gaining some momentum in south Orange County.

It's lacrosse and played by hundreds of boys and girls in your local community.

On Saturdays, an array of games were held at Glen Yermo Elementary in Mission Viejo, with teams from Irvine, Hewes, St. Mary and All Angels and Mission Viejo.

San Clemente's Duke Delancellotti, 13, plays for Mission Viejo. He learned the sport from his grandfather, who moved to southern California from New York.

``He taught me a lot of arm movements with shooting and footwork,'' said Delancellotti. ``He has an old bamboo stick and sometimes we play catch at his house.''

Although it's mainly been an East Coast sport, Delancellotti sees some progress westward. Now that Anaheim has its own professional lacrosse team, he expects the sport to become more popular in the county.

Lacrosse was invented centuries ago by the Algonquin tribe in Long Island, N.Y. The Indians used balls made of deer hide, wooden sticks fastened with cow guts for the netting. Popular on the East Coast and Canada since the 19th Century, lacrosse has finally made inroads to California just in the past decade.

``There were always club teams here in Southern California in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, but for the youth, it's always been a question of commitment,'' said Mission Viejo coach Scott Grubert. ``We needed to have some coaches come forward who knew the game.''

The youth league started in south Orange County with six teams and has now grown to 11 teams. Three years ago Mission Viejo started with 19 players and now has 85 players. Club teams are split into fourth through sixth grade boys and seventh and eighth grade boys.

Each team typically has 20 to 25 players with nine field players (three each of attackers, midfielders and defenders) and one goalie. Like hockey, a line of players are substituted all at one time, so a team may have three or four lines. That way everyone gets a chance to play in games.

``The key to growing the sport is getting coaches, referees and field use,'' said Grubert. ``Last year we got bounced all over the place, but this year the city of Mission Viejo has allowed us to use the Newhart field.''

On this day, St. Mary and All Angels shut out Irvine, 2-0, for its second win of the season.

``I think we're doing OK. We've won a game, lost a game and I think we're going to win this one,'' said Yuki Iizuki during the fourth quarter of the Falcons win. ``I'm confident we'll win. We should've won all the games this season.''

Due to an eighth grade project and finals, a lot of the players were out of shape for the game, said Iizuki. Most of his teammates started to play together as seventh graders.

``Our school introduced the sport to us,'' said Iizuki, 13, from Aliso Viejo. ``After a few days of playing it in P.E. we found out it was a really fun sport. It's really tricky because it's totally a team sport.''

Laguna Niguel's Zack Chichelo, 14, has been playing for the Falcons the past three seasons. He also started playing at St. Mary's and discovered he liked lacrosse.

``They give you pads and a metal stick,'' said Chichelo. ``It's like they're saying to please hurt someone. That's why I like to play defense, because I don't get hurt, but get to inflict the other guys.''

As a defender Chichelo said it's key to stick with his man and keep his head on a swivel: his eyes on the ball and opponent at all times.

``One day we heard about the sport at our school and now everyone has sweatshirts,'' said Chichelo. ``A good deal of the boys in our school play it.''

Chichelo said he enjoys the physical contact of lacrosse, making friends and meeting new people.

Chris Lungo of Laguna Niguel, found out about the sport from a friend at St. Mary's He started to attend some lacrosse camps to improve at the sport. Now at 12, he's one of the youngest players on the team, but also one of the smaller ones.

``It wasn't a difficult sport for me to learn because you have to use hand-eye coordination,'' said Lungo. ``I've played just about every sport except for tennis and softball.''

As an attacker and midfielder Lungo tries to outrun and outthink his opponents. He works out on his legs to get stronger. But sometimes the bigger defenders hit harder on the smaller ones.

Cheyne Parrott of Mission Viejo, 13, played right attack. After showing he had some good stick work he got moved to offense. The move paid off as he scored two goals in his second game of the season.

``I first saw lacrosse played on TV and my neighbor ended up getting me into the sport,'' said Parrott. ``It's a fast sport and I definitely get a rush when I'm coming down the field. With all the heavy hitting I get bruised, but it's worth it.''

Parrott said it feels good to play the sport, especially when his team wins. In order to be successful at the sport one needs to have speed, agility, strength and good hand-eye coordination.

``You have to be really fast and move around quickly,'' said Mission Viejo's Eric Evans. ``With a whole bunch of us moving against bigger defenders it's hard.''

Evans switches out with teammates every quarter. On offense he works the left side and his team moves the ball around between midfielders and attackmen, until they get an open shot.

Incidental contact is OK. Teams are given 30-second power plays or one-minute power plays for personal fouls.