Braden Erksa really was a football and baseball kid growing up in Cobb County when he wandered next door and saw a lacrosse sticking lying in the backyard.
“I was like, ‘Oh, what’s this?’” he said. “And I just kind of fell in love with it and started playing and never looked back.”
Erksa’s discovery story sounds like many others in Georgia who have gravitated to the game and have helped it become the state’s fastest-growing sports for boys. There now are 135 GSHA schools who play lacrosse and more than 20,000 participants in youth leagues, mostly in metro Atlanta.
Erksa starred at Lassiter High School and spent a year at the IMG Academy in Florida before earning a scholarship to play at the University of Maryland. It all worked out. The who kid who stumbled onto his first lacrosse stick was the Big Ten’s Freshman of the Year in 2022. He led the team in points scored as a freshman and a sophomore. Now a junior, he’s considered one of the league’s best attackman/midfielder.
Erksa and the No. 2-ranked Terps (4-0) will be in the local spotlight this week when they play Notre Dame (3-0), ranked No. 1 and the defending NCAA champion. The game is a rematch of last year’s NCAA title game as the centerpiece of the Atlanta Lacrosse Invitational at Bobby Dodd Stadium at 1 p.m. Saturday.
The Invitational begins at 9 a.m. with a high school match between Milton and Lambert. The third game features Mercer, which fields Georgia’s only Division I lacrosse team, against Drexel at 4 p.m.
Credit: University of Mary
Credit: University of Mary
Erksa is eager to return home and play before a crowd that is expected to approach 10,000.
“I’m very proud to be from Atlanta, and I’m very proud to be from Georgia,” Erksa said. “If playing there and giving the people who supported me my whole life can show and inspire young kids who might be seeing high-level lacrosse for the first time, that’s great. It shows that it doesn’t matter where you’re from, you can make it anywhere as long as you believe in yourself.”
Notre Dame has two Georgians on its roster — midfielder Fisher Finley, who played at Milton, and defender Ridge Johnson, who played at Lakeside-Augusta. They are byproducts of the growing sport as it stretches past the Mason-Dixon Line.
“It’s grown because it’s a combination of a lot of sports,” Erksa said. “You’ve got the physicality of football with the sticks and hitting people, and it’s kind of soccer-esque where you’re running around making plays and you have a ball and you’re trying to score on the goal. It’s just really fun, and it makes it easy for people to pick up on and have fun playing.”
The tripleheader is part of the “Lacrosse Out Cancer” promotion to raise money to benefit the Pediatric Children’s Research Foundation, as well as veterans organizations Shootout for Solders Foundation and Save a Warrior. Tickets are available at 285lacrosse.com.
“Our goal is to create opportunities for kids to do something different,” said Jason Beyo, the tournament’s organizer and a longtime local lacrosse activist. “You can be 5-foot-6 or 6-foot-5 and you can play. You don’t have to be 6-8 or weigh 300 pounds to play lacrosse.”
Mercer has fielded a lacrosse team since 2011. The Bears (1-3) are led by attackman Dillon Bush, named to the ASUN All-Freshman team in 2024, midfielder Michael Frederick, and defensemen Davis Peek and Quinn Kelley. Mercer had a player taken in the National Lacrosse League draft in September. Attackman Taylor Dooley was taken as the No. 15 pick in the first round by the Buffalo Bandits.
The high school game features Lambert, a four-time champion which finished second in Class 7A last year, against Milton, a two-time state champion which reached the quarterfinal round a year ago. Lambert is ranked No. 1 in Division 3 and Milton is ranked No. 2 in Division 2, according to LaxNumbers.com.
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