Basketball-

For the first time in years the Laguna Blanca boys’ varsity basketball team won in the CIF playoffs and the girls’ team won the Condor League.

The boys’ team, consisting mainly of sophomores and juniors (one senior with no varsity experience), won a coin flip against Cate to get into the playoffs.

But, after two exciting home games, in the third round of the playoffs they fell to Desert Christian, the team that would go on to win the CIF championship.

The girls’ team won their first Condor League championship, but fell to the Poly Panthers in the first round.

This year, both teams are under new coaching staffs, the Owls are looking to build off of their experience and success they gained last year.

The boys’ team will be returning with nine of the ten members from last years team “Our experience and new coaches are going to make us very competitive this year,” said one of last years co-captains, David Katz.

The girls’ team lost 5 seniors from last years team. But, with one senior and a handful of juniors and sophomores, the team will be looking to grow off their youth and experience.

The boys’ team will be lead this year by head coaches Sal Rodriquez and assistant Shantay Legans.

Sal was once the head coach at Dos Pueblos and Shantay was a highly recruited point guard at Dos Pueblos who ended up playing Division I basketball at Cal.

“Sal and Shantay have changed our entire outlook on the season. We’re going to be playing tough defense and running the basketball constantly. After our success in winning the summer league, its easy to see the clear improvement we have had even to this point in time,” said Katz.

Erin Johansson is the girls’ head coach this year after being their assistant coach last year.

“Erin is going to come in and push us but will make us a better team by making us work harder than we have in the past,” said senior Gail Goldmuntz about her new coach.

Soccer-

Last winter’s season could not have gone any better for the Owl’s girls’ soccer team, while the guys’ team was hoping for a few more games to play.

Not only did the girls make it the farthest in CIF in Laguna girls’ soccer history, but they also finished undefeated in their league.

The guys’ team was led by a group of experienced seniors last year, but the same is true this year led by seniors Patrick Lauer, Ryan Emmons, and Andrew Judson.

Both teams, even though having different kinds of success, have high expectations for themselves.

Although there are only two seniors returning, junior Monica Beltran, one of the teams key defensive players said, “Most of our strength is in our youth. We’ve got a bunch of underclassmen that are really going to help carry our team. We all want to win and prove that last year was real and that we are a good team.”

Sophomore Erin Stone, also a league top scorer, returns with even more enthusiasm.

For the guys, they are looking as well to use their experienced youth to lead them.

“We definitely lost some talent last year, but I have high hopes for a solid team. We will have a lot of depth yet we will also be looking for some younger athletes to step up. There is just as much potential success as we had last year.

When asked what he expects for the girls this winter, Luna said, “We’re going to come out really competitive this year with hopefully a repeat of last year. Right now we’re in a process of learning.”

Luna continued, “We need our seniors to show an immense amount of leadership this year. Our junior class is really experienced and we’ve got a very young team.”

The guys’ team will be looking to make that final push into a Condor league championship and a chance in CIF for the first time since 2005.

“This year it looks like we’re all close and have good talent and are positioned to make a push into CIF. We’re gonna have a good year.” said senior Ryan Emmons.