The three years behind the Oaks Christian boys lacrosse rebuild culminated with hugs, tears and equipment strewn across the field of Fred Kelly Stadium in Orange.
The Lions had beaten Notre Dame 6-5 in overtime Saturday in the CIF Southern Section Division 3 championship for the first title in school history.
It is the latest and biggest step forward for the program.
“Kids were crying because they’d never won anything,” Oaks Christian coach Geoff Sebold said. “We’d been through a lot in the last three years. We never had a winning record in the last three years.”
Jensen Bell scored the golden goal and chipped in another goal earlier in the game. Danny Schultz tied the game with 41 seconds remaining in regulation.
Lawson Spruill also scored two goals and Jonah Zirretta added one goal.
“Last year as a junior, I handed the offense to Jensen,” Sebold said. “It was cool to see him grow into the leadership role and start being the guy on the team that I needed him to be. The captain, the guy who’s directing traffic, who’s keeping the kids motivated, pushing.”
Oaks Christian (14-6) first formed a club lacrosse team in 2004 and the first CIF-SS championships were held in 2021. Sebold is in his third season as head coach, although he has helped the team in various capacities previously, and has put in a lot of effort into turning the Lions into champions.
One of the biggest challenges was finding players. The lacrosse players that Sebold already had were starting to recruit their friends and athletes from other sports at the school. As wins slowly started to come, more people became interested.
“Some of the football guys came out and saw it for the first time and were like, wow, you can hit guys? And we got a couple of basketball players,” Sebold said. “We teach them to play defense with your feet and basketball players know how to play defense like that, move their body, getting in front of guys.”
The football players who hadn’t joined still supported and cheered on the lacrosse team, especially in the championship game. They watched a live stream of the game from the weight room and exploded into loud celebration when the overtime goal was scored.
@haleymsawyer Athletes supporting athletes! The Oaks Christian football team cheered on the lacrosse team during the CIF-SS championships on May 11. #journalist #reporter #sports #highschoolsports #lacrosse #lax #lacrossetok #football #highschoolfootball #westlake
Oaks Christian was one of two Marmonte League teams competing in a championship game this season. Agoura, the league runner-up, lost 11-10 to Mira Costa in the Division 2 championship.
“To have two teams from our league in the championship is cool,” Sebold said. “We were hoping Agoura would pull it out, too, because those coaches are all friends of ours. The kids all know each other, they’re all friends, so we were hoping for that.”
Although a CIF-SS title has been obtained, the rebuild isn’t over for Oaks Christian. Sebold wants to gain more players and get them more experience through club teams and boys lacrosse in the offseason.
But, for the moment, the rebuild seems to be going according to plan.
“When I started over, we were not at some pinnacle,” Sebold said. “We weren’t even close. We hadn’t even had a winning record. And they hung with it. Everything seemed to go our way this year.”