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Steamboat Springs — The Steamboat Springs boys lacrosse team will be playing for much more than its first win of the season when it faces off against Summit at 3:30 p.m. today at Gardner Field.

"Best in the West" bragging rights also are on the line.

The game will be the first meeting between two Western Slope boys lacrosse teams sanctioned under the Colorado High School Activities Association.

"It's a big ball game for us," Steamboat coach Bob Hiester said. "They're essentially just down the road from us, so if we could create a rivalry, it would be super."

Steamboat began CHSAA-regulated play in 2002, and Summit (2-2) is entering its first year as a sanctioned team.

"It's been a rollercoaster of a season," Summit coach Jay Beckerman said of the transition to top-level Foothills Conference play from a successful 2006 club season. The Summit team went 27-4 in the unaffiliated lacrosse league of Western Slope high school teams.

Durango lacrosse coach Bruce Moss said this high school club, "Mountain League," which includes Durango, Telluride, Aspen, Grand Valley, Windsor and two Eagle Valley teams, picks up one or two new teams a year. He expects CHSAA undoubtedly will add a Western Slope conference "within five years."

The sport has grown steadily statewide since the first CHSAA-sanctioned state championships in 1999 and has increased from a pool of 27 teams to 48.

Although Beckerman has been adjusting his Summit squad to the increased competition level of an exclusive schedule of CHSAA opponents, sanctioned play has brought challenges such as "the pressures of grade eligibility and other suspension problems," which the team must now account for.

Summit still has a pair of wins and ranks No. 35 in the state, slightly higher than Steamboat at No. 38, according to www.laxpower.com.

Beckerman credits the play of his veteran attack unit and core of defensemen, all of whom started playing on the youth team he started five years ago.

The games Steamboat plays today and at 11 a.m. Saturday against No. 10-ranked Fort Collins will mark the final home games of Steamboat's season.