While most college athletics offer summer camps for a variety of sports, some might not be as valuable as one in a player's hometown.

For nearly 20 years, Auburn High School has conducted a Summer Box Lacrosse League. However this year for the first time, it's being run by the Auburn YMCA-WEIU. The outcome is still the same, though, with a lot of familiar faces on the field, including several players that are currently playing lacrosse at the college level.

“The talent is unbelievable,” YMCA Youth Sports Director Jeff Hanno said. “(Auburn lacrosse standout) Connor (Entenmann) signed with a college already as a junior. It's just unbelievable.”

That talent includes a Division III National Champion and two Division I athletes at the men's level, while the women's level is lifting off with a Junior College National Champion and a Division I player of its own in its first year as a league.

Since the YMCA has taken over, they have made a noticeable change to the playing atmosphere, adding green turf instead of the concrete of the ice skating rinks as a playing surface. That is something that has only helped the interest in the league and is helping those playing to get better, AHS graduates like Matt Hoey, Bob Brannigan and BJ Simmons.

“In college, you might just play defense or offense,” Simmons said. “but here you have to play everything.”

Simmons plays defense for SUNY Albany and is the net sometimes for his Box Lacrosse team, Balloon's/Jacobs Press, which he plays with Hoey, who won a national title as a freshman at SUNY Cortland and Bob Brannigan, who will be entering his sophomore year at Saint Joseph's University.

Brannigan started playing in the league after his sophomore year of high school and is using this year as a way of rehabbing back from a knee injury.

“I got hurt in the first half of my freshman year,” he said. “I'm slowly working my way back through the rehab.”

Last year, he might not have been able to do that had the league not added its new playing atmosphere, something that he doesn't take for granted.

“This is the best year yet,” Brannigan said.

The three members of Balloon's/Jacobs Press aren't the only players that are on a men's lacrosse team.

The talent and skills each player possesses makes the league a challenge, but a fun one.

Not only do they compete against kids their age, but the battles between former Maroons lacrosse players is an incentive in itself.

“Mostly this league is for city pride,” Simmons said. “You get to beat up on the older guys. I think we're the new generation.”

Despite no prizes or trophies awarded at the end of the season, the bragging rights are something they will always enjoy.

So it doesn't come as a surprise the level of physical play that goes on during the games.

“You gain real experience,” Hoey said. “They play real tough and physical. Just like in college and that helps us get better.”

Getting better is something they would like to do as well as is the goal for women's team members Jamie Handley, who won a national title with Onondaga Community College and Leigh Downing, a member of the Niagara University women's lacrosse team.

“I like how it's like a homecoming every summer,” Hanno said. “It's not bush league, there's talent.”