Max Ritz, Head Coach JSerra Boy’s lacrosse.
This season at J-Serra we have very high expectations. We don’t have specific goals, like winning this league or that title, but we have the goal of being winners in every single drill, practice, game that we’re together for. Doing that will bring plenty of recognition and confidence to the program.
Being a first-year coach at this school I’ve had to judge our talent, implement a system, and gameplan for teams in a short period of time. Having great kids and great families in our program has made that job relatively easy for me. In this short time we’ve instilled the same winning attitude that all other sports at J-Serra instilled, which is the same attitude that will help put J-Serra lacrosse on the map. The steps our administration has taken for the program’s future will insure that this attitude persists for years to come. Basically we look forward to every event, practice and game because every time we get together as a program, we’re committed to getting better; our team motto embodies just that notion: “It’s only fun if you win.”
Our game vs Pali High was interesting; their coaches did a nice job putting a zone-defense to work. 6v6 zone-defenses are not something you traditionally deal with in California, so our kids weren’t exactly prepared. We called a quick timeout (literally 00:45 into the game), adjusted, and battled our way to a 3 or 4 goal win. Our kids come from scattered backgrounds and introductions to the game of lacrosse, which doesn’t lend itself to the best coaching in the game, so Maxx Davis, Evan Guerrero and I have had to climb some hurdles in the fundamentals category. We’re a better team now because of the lessons learned in the Pali game, and zone-defenses will no longer be a problem.
Lot of credit to their coaches and their kids – They were well prepared and played a very fair brand of lacrosse. They run a good program over there, we look forward to playing them again down the road.
