Lacrosse Overview

Lacrosse is a mix between soccer, basketball, and hockey. It is a popular sport in the East Coast but the interest level is growing along the West Coast and was one of the many indigenous stickball games played by American Indians. Are you interested in playing the fastest sport on two feet? Many students at Mission Bay High School showed their curiosity by joining the new Lacrosse team.

The sport started as an exclusively male team sport and is distinguished different from others by the use of a netted racquet to help pick the rubber ball off the ground, throw, catch, and get the ball into or past a goal to score a point. The main cardinal rule in lacrosse, with few exceptions, states you cannot touch the ball with your hands. The cost to play this sport is expensive because of the helmet, gloves, chest pad, cleats, and more protective gear. On top of the cost of all the gear, the sport involves a lot of traveling to provide a better opportunity for being showcased.

Norm Webb, the “Godfather”, of San Diego lacrosse began his career at Gilman School playing varsity lacrosse from 1957-1960. He was a goalie for the United States Military Academy and had major success. He was also known in developing, coaching, and expanding lacrosse in the West Coast. Norm was inducted in the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1983. He not only deeply valued lacrosse, but the friendships and experiences the sport offered. In his will, he gave nearly his entire estate to US Lacrosse to show the support he had for the sport he played and believed in his whole life.

The lacrosse coach at Mission Bay High School, Justin Aefsky, had a few things to share with us here at The Beachcomber. Coach Aefsky said, “This year was a good start to the program and the program is looking to add a junior varsity team to help prep players to be on the varsity level. Eventually that will allow us to get a middle school program started which will lead into a youth program. This sport is not CIF funded, but it is CIF sanctioned. We started from scratch this year and had to fundraise our own budget. On top of all the fundraisers, we have had an amazing support group consisting of amazing parents. In January our parents made a wine tasting/raffle/taco cart fundraiser and raised about 5000 dollars. I am also working with some of my buddies about starting a summer program to get kids more involved in the sport and opportunities it has to offer.”

The last thing Coach Aefsky shared with us The Beachcomber, ““We are able to get this program off the ground, next year looking forward to being competitive and will be actively recruiting any student on this campus that is interested in trying out a new spring sport.” The Buccaneers have great opportunities in athletics with enthusiastic coaches such as Coach Aefsky. Students need to take advantage of these new sports and this variety of athletics adds to the diversity of the school.