Marmonte Lacrosse Standings
Westlake 2-4
Agoura 7-2
Oaks Christian 4-4
Newbury Park 4-4
Calabasas 4-4
Thousand Oaks 0-0 (Closed their program)
High school lacrosse is back! My pick for league champion is either Agoura or Westlake, though you wouldn’t know it by their records. Only those teams are playing really good teams. It should show when they start to play league games. They are really the only two good teams in our area, with the edge going to Agoura this year …
Orange County teams are so much better! Westlake played #15 in the nation, St. Margaret’s, and lost 15-5. That said, Westlake was the first team to score on them. St. Margaret’s was the best high school lacrosse team I have seen in a while, and they should win it all …
Lacrosse is such an awesome game when executed properly. Funny thing — I have noticed really good high school lacrosse teams don’t like to schedule easy games! You have to be good to get the opportunity to play teams like #44 in the nation Loyola or #2 in the nation Foothill …
Talking to a parent, I heard something that made me think how CIF really doesn’t care about the athletes. The NCAA has a portal, and if an athlete is not happy, he enters into it and can go to another school without losing eligibility (not to mention that the NCAA gave college student-athletes another year of eligibility due to COVID shutdowns). In high school, if an athlete moves from one school to another, he or she loses half the season. That’s on top of the two lost years with COVID lockdowns. If a parent cannot afford high tuition for a private school and moves the child to a public school, CIF punishes the athlete by taking away half of his or her season. The only way around this is to move your home address, and the whole family moves. Then you cannot lose any games. You would think CIF would have some compassion for children in these awkward circumstances … Enough has been taken away from them during COVID.
The top Marmonte lacrosse team last year, Westlake, has its hardest schedule in years… Last year, Coach Peter Swander had a solid team but was forced to play local non-competitive teams and stay within the Conejo Valley. Ridiculed for having such a weak schedule, this year Westlake’s easiest games are their league games. … The season-opener vs. Crespi showed that Westlake will be struggling this year to beat a lower-level team by one point.
Very sad to say, Crespi, the week prior to its opener, had an athlete collapse on the field — a heart attack at practice — I had never heard of such a thing. Please keep him in your prayers …
Westlake went on to play three solid lacrosse schools: Loyola, St Margaret’s and Palos Verdes, which spelled a three-game losing streak for our home team. It’s still the #2 team in the area. The Marmonte match-up not to miss is against Agoura High at Westlake on March 23 … That game should show us who will win the Marmonte title this year. I’m giving Agoura a big edge, but anything can happen with the two top teams in our area … Don’t miss this one.
Sean Lindsay’s one of the better lacrosse coaches in the area. His team, Agoura High School, is my pick to win Marmonte. They opened up with a loss to Los Alamitos, a solid team, 11-10 in overtime. Beat Sierra Canyon by 1 and lost to Loyola, last year’s Southern Champions in D1, by 5.
It was sad to see Thousand Oaks High School discontinue its lacrosse program for both boys and girls. Seven short years ago, T.O. was one of the higher-ranked teams and always put up a good game. They lost their coach, and year by year, kept going downhill. … The COVID shutdown killed the program … A tragedy for the sport and the athletes. Losing a sport because you can’t get a coach? The school board needs to pay coaches better. It is a shame that CVUSD is not paying coaches what they are worth. Coaches get a small stipend to coach, not enough to pay for their gas for the season, and with no benefits … The boosters have to get permission from the principal to give a coach a stipend. And it has to be approved by the principal of the school, who is making well over $100,000 a year. Talk about overpaid. Teachers don’t make that kind of money … Neither do coaches, who often have a great impact on the kids they coach by teaching integrity, hard work and sportsmanship… The coaches fought all through COVID to have the athletes play, while the teachers’ unions fought to stay closed. Overpaid principals were in teachers’ back pockets … Coaches dealt with ridiculous rules principals made during COVID. I remember watching them force players into 15-player pods and disinfecting balls between catches … A little over a year ago — how stupid that was … All while pro sports did far less, and now we know for a fact it was all a bunch of contradictions. And yet the overpaid principals followed the school boards to keep the schools closed and keep masks on the students. What a civic disaster … Anyway, I will miss watching T.O.’s lacrosse team.
With the start of lacrosse, spring training for high school football starts. Can’t wait for a normal season!! I am seeing a big problem: the seniors look and act like sophomores … Two years of their high school lives were lost. Who knows what the long-term impact will be?
WESTLAKE’S 2022 FOOTBALL SEASON
Agoura (scrimmage)
Pacifica
Crespi
Thousand Oaks
Birmingham
Sierra Canyon
The New Marmonte League (*League newcomers)
Simi Valley*
St. Bonaventure
Oaks Christian
Bishop Diego*
Calabasas
