More than 50 lacrosse teams from British Columbia, Oregon and Washington converged on the Plateau last Friday, July 3, for the fourth annual Sammamish Shoot-Out.

“It was about a third bigger than last year,” tournament organizer Eric Bean said. “It’s grown about 30 percent year after year since we’ve started.”

The Chumash-style tournament, hosted by Issaquah Youth Lacrosse, was played on nine grass fields at Pine Lake Middle School. Teams were placed divisions by school year — with boys and girls teams in grades 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, high school underclassmen and high school upperclassmen.

“We were really at capacity with the 55 teams we had there,” Bean said. “Our expectation next year is to expand to a second set of fields. We wouldn’t mind if this grew big enough to spread over fields in Issaquah and Sammamish.”

The Sonics, a group of freshmen and sophomores from Issaquah, won the grand championship beating Issy2010 in the title game. Local division winners included: The Puckheads (Junior), the Sonics (Boys Underclassmen) and Issy2010 (Boys Upperclassmen).

Chumash is 3-on-3 lacrosse played on a smaller field (50 by 30 yards) with a single, undefended goal centered in the field. Traditional lacrosse has 10 players on each team with two goals on the field. The object of Chumash is for each team to score on the narrow goal, from their side of the field.

“To our knowledge, ours was the first 3-on-3 in the Northwest,” Bean said, noting that inspiration came from a tournament in Vale, Colo.

He said a new tournament started in Oregon this year, using the Sammamish tournament as its inspiration.

“It’s great that word has gotten out and the popularity of 3-on-3 is picking up,” Bean said.

Division winners

Boys Lightning: Bellevue Blue

Boys Juniors: The Puckheads (Issaquah)

Boys Seniors: Bellevue Blue

Boys HS Underclassmen: Sonics (Issaquah)

Boys HS Upperclassmen: Issy2010 (Issaquah)

Boys Overall: Sonics (Issaquah)

Girls Lightning: Starz

Girls Juniors: Pixie Sticks

Girls Seniors: J.J.’s Potato Skins

Girls HS Underclassmen: Islanders

Girls HS Upperclassmen: Vail 5