Boys Lacrosse coach cautiously optimistic about season

When the Fallbrook Union High School Boys Lacrosse team opens its season in the spring, head coach Mike Zinniger isn't quite sure what's going to happen or if it's going to happen.

"It's a weird year, yeah," he said in a phone interview. "You know, if we have a season and I haven't even started scheduling games yet and none of the coaches are, we don't know what's going to happen."

In addition, according to Zinneger, because a lot of the players he expects to play lacrosse also play football, he's not sure how many of those players will make the transition.

"We're going to be back to back with football," he said. "So we're hoping there's no delays in the football season because I just foresee that pushing us back."

Then there's the issue of boys rugby happening in the spring as well.

"Our kids are going to have to make a choice," he said. "I've always told them you can play two sports if you want. I've had track kids play for me. I've had swimming, kids, tennis, it's a lot on their schedule. I'll offer that up to the rugby kids, but you know, it's a big commitment. It's going to be brutal."

And then there is the scheduling issue with games.

"With boys and girls soccer and girls lacrosse, and I've been kind of going back and forth with the girls soccer coaches, what days are your games?" Zinneger said. "When do you practice? It's going to be tough. I was considering doing all away games just to make it easy."

Practicing won't be easy either, especially since all the coaches have day jobs off campus.

"There's three fields we utilize," Zinnegar said. "The stadium and then the field up above the stadium and then the JV baseball field we use a lot. The only problem with those is they don't have lights and because all of my coaches and myself work, we have to have practices from 5:30 to 7:30. Which isn't a huge deal. Sometimes when there's a track meet or a girls game, we'll go practice until dark. But with these other two soccer teams involved, it's going to be a little tricky. We'll do whatever it takes."

Zinnegar said last year's team graduated 13 seniors.

"It's going to be an interesting year because we lost 13 seniors, which was the majority of our varsity," he said. "We're going to have a very young team, a lot of freshmen and sophomores are gonna have to move up because I don't think we'll have the numbers for a JV. Based on my head count right now, we might just have to go with the varsity, which puts those younger kids – you have to throw them in the fire.

"They mixed up the Valley League a little bit. They got rid of Valley Center, which was always our nemesis. I think we're going to be competitive; it's going to be a young team and they're going to have to learn a lot on the fly."

Zinnegar said he hasn't had too much contact with his team so far.

"Last season ended on Friday the 13th," he said. "I'll never forget that because we had a game that day and I didn't see my kids for probably four or five months until we collected gear. But we were able to get some field time up at Ingold because we can't go on campus. But I've been doing once a week just for an hour. Everyone just gets together and we just throw around and we do simple passing drills. It's minimal lacrosse, but at least it's lacrosse and I get to see the boys and they get to see each other and they get out of the house, which is amazing.

"They're so out of shape, but it's like I've been telling them, you have to do stuff on the side."

Jeff Pack can be reached by email at [email protected].