BREAKER SPORTS UPDATE
FOOTBALL
Laguna’s 90th varsity football season opens in August. The squad is led by their all-time quarterback, Jackson Kollock, who has committed to Minnesota for his collegiate career. Coach John Shanahan returns for his ninth season (59-31-0), the third-longest run in Laguna history. Last year, the team went 9-2, and the frosh/soph squad went 10-0 and outscored their opponents 457-14, facing a very challenging schedule.
For the first 73 varsity seasons, all sports at Laguna, including football, were grouped into one league, usually based on school size and geography. Laguna won 13 football titles under this format. In 2018, the Breakers joined the ultra-competitive Sunset Conference for all sports but football. Football was placed in the weaker Golden West Conference, competing in the Pac-4 League, winning four league crowns in six seasons of play.
Starting this season, 69 Orange County schools will be placed into 12 leagues based on a computer-weighted algorithm on the last two seasons of play. This was the same system used the past two seasons for football playoff division assignments based on actual current season results. The Breakers have ended up in the fifth strongest league for the next two seasons, along with Northwood, Orange, Fountain Valley, Aliso Niguel, and Dana Hills – all schools more than twice the enrollment size of Laguna. The official league name, as selected by the Orange County Football Conference, is “Fox Trot.”
There are 373 high schools in the Southern Section that play 11-man football, and the Breakers enter the 2024 season with their highest pre-season ranking in 89th.
2024 season schedule – 7 p.m. kick-off time. (series history)
Aug. 23 at St. Margaret’s (1-4-0)
Aug. 30 at Santa Monica (1st Meeting)
Sept. 6 – Kennedy/La Palma (1st Meeting)
Sept. 13 – Gig Harbor – WA (1stMeeting)
Sept. 20 – El Dorado (2-3-0)
Sept. 27 – bye
Oct. 4 – Northwood at Irvine HS (6-8-0)
Oct. 11 – Fountain Valley (1-0-0) Homecoming
Oct. 18 at Aliso Niguel (0-5-0)
Oct. 25 – Dana Hills (11-11-1)
Nov. 1 – Orange (5-12-0)
The “Fox Trot” League games are in bold. Visit the Cal Preps website for ratings, schedules, scores, and more: calpreps.com.
Indoor Volleyball – Local Summer Program
Back in the 1970s, Rolf Engen founded the Laguna Beach Volleyball Club as a local community non-profit to train Laguna’s boys and girls and support the high school program. The high school teams were successful during this 30-year period until the club changed its mission and moved out of town. In the ensuing years, a few attempts were made to re-establish a local community-based program, and it wasn’t till Leif Hansen, the 1983 State High School Player of the Year, established the Laguna Coast Volleyball Club that a local program is now firmly re-established. Several veteran Laguna volleyball legends with extensive club coaching experience have joined the program, and the club now provides both boys’ and girls’ teams. The Thurston Middle School sports program has also been a big boost to the local volleyball scene. The local club summer programs begin for kids as young as seven. Visit the website for more information, lagunacoastvolleyballclub.org.
ALUMNI NOTES:
Women’s water polo: Emma Lineback ’21 is on the Senior Women’s National Team this year.
Beach volleyball: Incoming senior Kyra Zaengle has made USA Volleyball’s Under 19 Women’s National Team.
Laguna Beach High School Athletics summer programs will start soon. Check out the programs for all sports at lbhs.lbusd.org.
Have a note/question on Laguna sports/correction/update? E-mail Frank at [email protected]. Looking for the 2023-24 high school schedules and scores? Check Laguna Beach High School on the MaxPreps website.
