Newbury Park, Oak Park, Royal girls lacrosse prepared for postseason by Marmonte clashes
Micah Shin, Reagan Laubner, Sophia Campbell and their fellow senior classmates completed the full set.
Even with an expanded new challenge under a first-year coach, the Newbury Park High girls lacrosse team won the Marmonte League for the fourth straight season this spring.
“I’m super lucky with a great group of girls,” said Newbury Park head coach Savannah Santos. “The senior class that we have this year is very special. They’ve won it every year since they were freshmen, which is really cool.”
The Marmonte League added Oak Park, Royal and Simi Valley to expand to seven teams this season, gathering nearly all the county’s established programs into a single league.
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The speedy Shin leads the Panthers with 66 goals and added 12 assists.
“Micah just one of the fastest players and most fluid that I’ve ever coached on any level,” Santos said. “She always surprises me.”
Laubner, who is committed to Catholic University, has 49 goals and 16 assists from the center position while leading the team in ground balls (26) and draw controls (52).
Goaltender Campbell is saving 54.5% of the shots she faced, allowing 6.5 goals per game.
“She’s one of the most laid-back people I’ve ever met,” Santos said. “She’s always super calm and cool.”
Midfielder Elliana Dorsi, who had a team-high 82 draw controls, and Maya Pantoja lead a strong sophomore class.
“It’s been a really fun season,” said Santos, who played at Thousand Oaks High and previously was an assistant coach at BYU. “As a coach, the main things that I’ve had to do is make minor adjustments during games and practice specific things.
“But the girls have so much talent and drive, it makes my job much simpler.”
Newbury Park (12-1, 11-1) split a pair of showdowns with talented Oak Park (14-2, 10-2), edging the Eagles 11-10 on March 15 and suffering its lone loss 11-9 on April 19.
Both Newbury Park and Oak Park open the CIF-SS Division 1 playoffs in Thursday's first round.
Newbury Park will host Redondo Union (13-4), while Oak Park will visit Santa Ana-Mater Dei (11-5).
Oak Park is led by sophomore star Chloe Gibbs and junior Gemma Dutcher.
Sophomore Lauren Reed leads third-place Royal (10-9, 8-4) with 99 points — 72 goals and 26 assists — while midfielder Amanda Borg has 53 goals and 21 assists and attack Madison Arrasmith has 47 goals and 17 assists.
"We have a solid team moving forward and we’re aware of the challenges ahead," said Royal coach Cathe Utterback. "We have some work to do to prepare, but we’ll be ready."
The Highlanders visit Yorba Linda (11-9) and Oaks Christian (10-5) will host Irvine-Portola (12-8) in the Division 2 wild-card round Tuesday.
Thacher (9-7) will host Laguna Beach in a Division 3 wild-card game Tuesday.
Joe Curley is a staff writer for The Star. He can be reached at joe.curley@vcstar.com. For more coverage, follow @vcspreps on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Newbury Park, Oak Park, Royal girls lacrosse ready for postseason
