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CO Kevin Nagel, Oakville Beaver Sports Editor, knagel@burlingtonpost.com Sports "Connected to your Community" c n CL CD cr CD Age is no barrier to Lady Hawks lacrosse star Sixteen-year-old Claire Mills earns spot on national lacrosse team for Women's World Cup By Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver staff GO ro hO o The pool of players had been whittled down to 25 players w hen Claire Mills sat down at the dinner table and began draw ing up her list of w ho she believed would make the Canadian wom en' s lacrosse team. Mills had a unique perspective. She was among the original pool of 147 players vying for one of the coveted spots on the roster -- and was still around as the final cuts loomed. Even as the 16-year-old survived round after round of cuts, she never im agined herself pulling on a Canadian jersey. Some of the players Mills was com peting against were graduating col lege w hen she was starting elementary school. "I had no m indset of actually making the team," the Oakville Lady Hawks m id fielder said. "I w ent in hoping to get ex posure to playing at a higher level." Mills turned out to be a pretty good evaluator of talent, predicting 16 of the 18 players that w ould make the team. Of the two she m issed, one was a big one -- herself. She w ill now get to play at the highest level w hen she suits up for her country at the W om en' s Lacrosse World Cup in Guildford, England in July. W hile every Oakville's Claire Mills (in red) earned a spot on the Canadian women's field lacrosse team for the Women's Lacrosse World Cup in England in July. The 16-year-old once thought hockey would be her ticket to a scholarship, until she was introduced to lacrosse six years ago. | photo by Craig Chase - Canadian Lacrosse Association other member of the Canadian team is either com m itted to, playing for or already graduated from an NCAA program, the Grade 11 student at the Hill Academy hopes to join her teammates in that group soon. · · · · Mills once thought hockey would be her ticket to an NCAA scholarship. As recently as last season she was playing AA hockey with the Oakville Hornets, alongside several teammates now playing in the Provincial W om en' s Hockey League. It was at the encouragement of her hockey teammates that she started playing lacrosse six years ago. She immediately fell in love w ith the sport. "It' s kind of a m ix of m ultiple sports -- basketball, soccer, hockey. Having an understanding of all of those sports helps." Though Mills -- by her ow n ac count -- may not have been that tal ented during her first season, she had a strong drive to improve and quickly started to show promise. During her second season, a conver sation started about her father' s Irish citizenship potentially giving her an opportunity to play for Team Ireland at the world championships. Her coaches, Ken and Jackie Byers, insisted that Mills certainly had the potential to play at worlds, but she should be playing for Canada. "That inspired m e and really en couraged m e to set goals for myself," Mills said. She made Ontario' s under-15 team in 2014 for an international tournament in Maryland and that' s where she real ized the opportunities lacrosse offered. "I realized the sport is so m uch big ger down there. It really opened my eyes," she said. "Hockey was what I wanted to pursue but I didn't even know scholarships were a possibility for lacrosse." Since then, Mills has played on Ontario' s under-18 team at the Inter national Festival of Lacrosse and was named a first-team all-star at the On tario Summer Games. A year ago she enrolled at the Hill Academy. It was a m ove that brought an end to her hock ey career and signaled a full com m it ment to lacrosse. Of course, now that she' s starting to achieve som e of those goals she set -- even those firmly in the long-term cat egory -- it' s pretty clear it was a good decision. Register: 905-336-3434x10 or programs@y/avehockey.ca WWW.WAVEHOCKEY.CA