Westside Wild is a registered 501c3 nonprofit lacrosse club focused on growing youth girls lacrosse in the Kansas City region.
Westside helps grow the game in two ways. We provide support and coaching to help develop youth players for the Blue Valley, Olathe, Aquinas and St James HS programs. Please visit the HS Women's Lacrosse tab to learn more about women's HS lacrosse in KC and the spring season tab to learn more about the spring youth season.
Beyond supporting local teams, we are the premier travel program in the area. Our 2029 team, which is the leading edge of our program, has become a highly ranked national team, something that is remarkable for a team from KC.
Westside helps grow the game in two ways. We provide support and coaching to help develop youth players for the Blue Valley, Olathe, Aquinas and St James HS programs. Please visit the HS Women's Lacrosse tab to learn more about women's HS lacrosse in KC and the spring season tab to learn more about the spring youth season.
Beyond supporting local teams, we are the premier travel program in the area. Our 2029 team, which is the leading edge of our program, has become a highly ranked national team, something that is remarkable for a team from KC.
History:
Westside Wild was started by Scott Gilman, the current St. James lacrosse head coach. In its first year, the program fielded a 7th and 8th grade team in the KC spring league. The following season was canceled by Covid. The season after that Chris Harrington joined Scott in helping to develop a 5/6 and 3/4 program. The 1st year we only had 8 5/6 girls sign up and so we put 4th graders on the 5/6 team to get us 12 girls. The team lost every game in the 5/6 spring rec league, only scoring 3 goals all season. Determined to improve the player quality, Chris set out on an ambitious effort to improve the talent level of girls in the program. In the not too distant future, Westside players were able to dominate the spring rec league and the journey towards becoming a travel team began.
The travel program started off shaky. Girls were way behind both knowledge wise and stick skills wise. But through a consistent effort and help from coaches like Erin Rauber, our 2029 travel team has been able to go beyond what any team from KC has been able to do. And we are looking to recreate that success with younger age groups.
Meanwhile, we haven't given up on trying to grow the best sport out there in KC. Each year we have had more and more girls sign up for the spring rec league and we are hoping 2026 continues that trend.
Westside Wild was started by Scott Gilman, the current St. James lacrosse head coach. In its first year, the program fielded a 7th and 8th grade team in the KC spring league. The following season was canceled by Covid. The season after that Chris Harrington joined Scott in helping to develop a 5/6 and 3/4 program. The 1st year we only had 8 5/6 girls sign up and so we put 4th graders on the 5/6 team to get us 12 girls. The team lost every game in the 5/6 spring rec league, only scoring 3 goals all season. Determined to improve the player quality, Chris set out on an ambitious effort to improve the talent level of girls in the program. In the not too distant future, Westside players were able to dominate the spring rec league and the journey towards becoming a travel team began.
The travel program started off shaky. Girls were way behind both knowledge wise and stick skills wise. But through a consistent effort and help from coaches like Erin Rauber, our 2029 travel team has been able to go beyond what any team from KC has been able to do. And we are looking to recreate that success with younger age groups.
Meanwhile, we haven't given up on trying to grow the best sport out there in KC. Each year we have had more and more girls sign up for the spring rec league and we are hoping 2026 continues that trend.
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