Girls Lacrosse a Family Affair At RUHS

It's all in the family for the girls lacrosse program.

Literally.

"I've been coaching some kind of sport since '93, and yes, I've had sets of brothers on a team, but never four sets of them," said Tom Borgia, the team's head coach. "This is really unusual."

Four sets of sisters are members of the Sea Hawks' standout program—and the foursome has made a significant impact on the varsity club, which rolled through the Bay League again and advanced to the U.S. Lacrosse Girls Southern Section Division I final last Saturday for the second straight year before .

The introductions, please: Bailey and Heather Czech; Allison and Emily Field; and Micayla and Allison Kotzbach. Twins Ariel and Alina Mistuloff were members of the unbeaten junior varsity team this season, though Ariel earned a bump to the varsity team during the playoffs. She scored a crucial goal in Redondo's thrilling 11-10 victory over Santa Barbara Cate to advance to the title match, and she started in the loss to Los Alamitos.

Field, a senior, was one of the Sea Hawks' top performers, finishing as the second-leading scorer behind Julia Denney with 51 goals and 16 assists.

Micayla Kotzbach, a junior and another one of the team's best, scored 40 goals and recorded 13 assists throughout the season. In her first season of varsity play, sophomore Allison Kotzbach had 25 goals. Senior Bailey Czech also scored 25 goals and had nine assists.

Sophomore Heather Czech, the team's goalie, stopped 165 shots. Borgia called Czech the best goalie in the South Bay and said the Sea Hawks, who finished 20-3 overall and undefeated for the second consecutive season with a 12-0 mark in the Bay League, wouldn't have fared nearly as well without her.

The lacrosse connection for the sisters developed almost four years ago. The older siblings joined the team, then the younger ones, seeing all of the fun their older sisters were having, became members of the club.

"During my freshman year, I was considering running track," said Allison Field, who also was a member of Redondo's highly successful volleyball team, which advanced to the CIF and Southern California Regional finals before falling to Long Beach Poly last fall. Field is considering walking on at the University of Arizona, where she will attend school this fall.

"But then I said, 'Why not [play lacrosse]?' It's probably been the best experience I’ve had in high school," she said. "I thought lacrosse was so different. At first, before I knew much about it, I was like, 'What’s [lacrosse] all about?' I figured I’d give it a try.”

The decision exceeded her expectations, particularly when she and Emily, who has made some valuable contributions as a reserve on the team, started playing together.

"I love playing with my sister," Allison said. "And since all of the girls have been like sisters to me, it was an easy transition with my sister joining the team. She fit right in. It's the first sport we played together. We've played the same sports together before, but we had never been on the same team."
 
"Allison got me interested in lacrosse, so I figured I'd try out, too," said Emily Field, a sophomore.

"It was just really fun having [Allison] there for me," Emily said. "I was on the JV team until this year, so this was a great experience. She taught me so much in the last two years. I'm obviously going to miss her next season, but I think we'll do well because she has taught us all so much."

The family affair—and the winning ways of the program—also appealed to the Kotzbach sisters.

"We all help each other out if we need help with anything," Micayla Kotzbach said. "We all get along well and have fun playing together. We're just like a family."

"It's been really exciting to play with my sister and the rest of the girls," said Allison Kotzbach, who also plays as a midfielder on the school soccer team. "The best highlight for us was passing to Micayla and watching her score. That's been one of the biggest moments for us. It happened two or three times this season."

Allison Kotzbach said she couldn't resist the sport after watching the good times roll with Micayla.

"I just saw how much fun the game was, and I decided I wanted to play with my sister," Allison Kotzbach said. "It's been an awesome experience."