Carly Kern wants to hit people.

Hard.

The Mars senior craves contact. She longs for aggressive checks, teeth-rattling collisions and intimidating defense.

Unfortunately for Kern, she doesn't get nearly enough of it under the current girls lacrosse rules.

She watches the boys version of the game and pines for that kind of bruising style.

“I would do anything to play boys lacrosse,” Kern said. “I love watching their games. As an aggressive defender myself, I feel like it would be easier to play it.”

Easier, maybe. But she'd have to learn an entirely new set of rules and game conditions.

So vast are the differences between boys and girls lacrosse, that they are essentially different sports.

“Really, the only thing that is the same is the goal,” said Mars boys lacrosse coach Bob Marcoux, who also helped form the girls lacrosse program at the school nearly a decade ago.

A tale of two games

Boys can be far more physical under their rules, evident by the extra equipment they wear.

In the boys game, players wear helmets with masks, shoulder pads, forearm pads and thick gloves — similar to a hockey player on the ice.

In the girls game, the only protective equipment required is goggles and a mouth guard.

The differences don't stop there.

The boys' game is split into four 12-minute quarters; the girls' game into two 25-minute halves.

The pocket on a boys' lacrosse stick is deep, and shots fired at the net can reach 110 mph; the pocket on a girls' lacrosse stick is very shallow, limiting the speed of a shot and making it much more difficult to keep possession of the ball.

“It's like the girls are playing with a tennis racquet,” Marcoux said.

The number of players on the field also differs — the boys' game has 10 while girls have 12.

Even the color of the ball is different — white for boys, yellow for girls.

The sweeping contrasts can be overwhelming, even for those who have been involved in lacrosse for decades.

When Marcoux, along with others, started a youth lacrosse program for girls in the Mars area more than a decade ago, they struggled with grasping the multitude of rules.

“Gosh, none of us knew anything about women's lacrosse when we started the youth program,” Marcoux said, chuckling. “We had to come up to speed very quickly — not as quickly as we probably should have.”

That was painfully evident during the first few games.

They instructed their players to kick the ball if it was on the ground. Wrong. That's against the rules in the girls game.

They tried to substitute on a restart. Nope. Can't do that, either.

“We really had no idea what we were doing,” Marcoux said, laughing. “Everything, I mean everything, is different.”

Slowly evolving

When Kern first picked up the sport during her freshman year in high school — extremely late to begin playing lacrosse — she was dumbfounded by the extreme differences between the boys and girls game.

“I saw a boys lacrosse game before, but I had never seen a girls game,” Kern said. “When I started playing, I was surprised. We couldn't hit anyone or anything.”

Kern, a basketball player at heart, adapted.

It took some time, however — and a lot of penalties.

Kern used some of the same skills that made her a standout defender on the basketball court while playing lacrosse.

The footwork is largely the same, as is the goal — don't let the player in front of you beat you.

Kern, though, still struggled with contact.

“The context of basketball has helped me through lacrosse,” Kern said. “But I've actually had to tone myself down on the lacrosse field as opposed to the basketball court. I can get away with a lot more contact in basketball than in lacrosse.”

That's always seemed strange to Kern.But things are slowly shifting.Some officials are letting more physical play go on the girls lacrosse field, and players like Kern are flourishing under those conditions.Girls lacrosse at the high school level has been around since 1926 — it's among the oldest prep sports.The evolution of the game has been slow.“Girls lacrosse started years and years ago, and when it started, we weren't as evolved as a society as we are now,” Marcoux said. “It was much more of a genteel game. It was much more feminine to have less contact and have a more polite sport. I think the rules haven't changed that much mainly because it's just tradition.”Officials have had to swallow their whistles to a certain degree because the girls game was getting entirely too bogged down by stoppages.This year, another rule change was incorporated to improve the flow of the game. No longer do players have to stand still on restarts. They are allowed free movement.“Before, there were just way too many whistles,” Marcoux said. “Way too many stops, and it took some of the flow of the game and the fun away with the whistle blowing all the time.”Kern has mastered the “meta game” of lacrosse.She not only scouts the opposing players but also the girls lacrosse officials.She knows which ones allow for more contact and which ones are sticklers for the rules.“During the captain meeting before each game I can see who is officiating,” Kern said. “I can get a grasp on what they are like and how strict they are. It's really hard because each one is different. It usually takes about five minutes into the game for me to get a good idea of what kind of game it's going to be.”It goes both ways.Kern has also developed something of a reputation with officials.It's a constant back and forth throughout the season. Kern is always calculating what she can and cannot get away with.“There's some who will say, 'Keep an eye on her. She's aggressive,'” Kern said, chuckling.Kern would like to see the game morph into something more resembling the boys game. Sooner rather than later.“I love it when they let us play,” Kern said. “It just makes the game better for everyone, for the girls playing and for the people watching. The pace is faster, and it enhances the whole game.”When asked if she would like to petition to change the rules and make it more like the boys game, Kern was intrigued.“I don't even know how I would go about doing that,” she said. “I'd probably have to go all the way up to the national level. If I could, that would be one of my greatest life accomplishments.”Injury risksButler native and North Catholic junior Carson Laconi is no stranger to contact on the football and lacrosse fields.As a defensive back for the Trojans' football team, he has a reputation as a hard-hitter. Football is where his future in college will be.But it was on the lacrosse field this spring when Laconi suffered his first serious injury in either sport.Laconi took a hard hit to his left side during a game against Mars. By halftime, he knew something was wrong.A trip to the Butler hospital revealed a lacerated spleen that needed to be removed before he bled to death.“I don't regret playing lacrosse at all,” Laconi said. “It was a fluke thing. Stuff happens, especially in any contact sport. That's something that can happen in any collision sport.”Risks of serious injury is one of the reasons why officials have been so reticent about loosening contact rules in girls lacrosse.Even Kern admits there are a fair share of injuries already, especially to the head.“Concussions are bad,” Kern said. “They happen at a very high rate. And we don't wear helmets.”Nothing could have prevented Laconi's injury.Just like Kern, though, he thinks it is time for girls to play the game more like the boys.He is a big fan of the sport and recently watched the NCAA women's lacrosse tournament on television.“There are girls transitioning over to football,” Laconi said. “There are girls who really want that collision, and that's really cool. Growing up playing football, I played against some girls, and if they want that kind of contact I think they should have a sport that brings that on.”It may happen one day.But for now, the two games will remain radically dissimilar.“The games are very different,” Marcoux said. “But they are both great games.”