The City College girls and boys lacrosse team faced many obstacles and adversities within the past year, but still managed to make the best of their seasons.
The girls lacrosse team has two captains, second year Sabrina Forbes and first year Kia Kofoed. Paul Ramsey has stepped up in support of the girls teams and acts as a coach to them, though he is not hired through City College. The girls have won every game so far in their season, allowing them to hold an undefeated record. The next game for the girls team is against CalPoly at 1 p.m. on March 4 in San Luis Obispo.
Getting the lacrosse team up and running was a great amount of work. The original captains, Taylor Ortiz and Valerie Bond stepped down due to it being “too much for them,” according to Ortiz.
“They got it off the ground. We could not have gotten where we are if they did not put in all the work they did to get the team up and running,” Kofoed said.
The girls Lacrosse team’s current status at City College is a student club, not a collegiate athletic team. They have goals of becoming an official team at City College under the CCCAA. Lack of Funding and extensive steps to become an official team is preventing them from getting hold of the title they desire according to Kofoed and Forbes.
The team has a donation website that initially began on instagram. The girls would share a venmo account link and post it on their stories. A large amount of money was raised through it, and each player had an individual goal of a certain amount they wanted to raise. The team is self funded, minus the foundation grant that was offered from City College. Both of the captains learned many lessons through the effort they put into the team.
“The amount of work that goes into things is probably my biggest takeaway. I would not have thought about the background stuff that went into the team I played on in highschool to get it to where it was until now,” Forbes said.
Gabriel Sabillo is the head coach of the boys lacrosse team and also served as the captain for the 2021-22 school year.
This is the first year having an official coach for the team. Similar to the girls lacrosse team, the boys had struggles starting up their team and gaining momentum. They faced many financial struggles and a low amount of competition to play against. According to Sabillo, last year they only had around four games while this year they have nine.
“The bond the guys had held the team together,” Sabillo said.
Jake Brody and Sabillo both started up the team after transferring from Notre Dame College because of their lacrosse program shutting down. The boys chose to come to City College because they thought the school already had a team running. Once they found out that they didn’t, the work was put in to get one running. They spent the entire spring of 2021 attempting to recruit people for the team.
“We were advertising everywhere, we talked to random guys on the streets, at parties, and even the library,” Sabillo said.
As of current accomplishments, the team beat their division rival, Moorpark, in a tournament and will face them again at a home game on Sunday, April 16. The team recently accomplished one of their longtime goals of joining the MCLA division after many unsuccessful attempts in the past. They are currently ranked fourth in their division.
Both teams have made many strides in the past year to reach their goals and still have more they would like to reach, but nevertheless are happy with all the work put in to get to where they are.
