Santa Barbara, CA - Two new coaches will assume their roles at SBCC when practice starts on January 20th. Maddie Garcia and Marissa Higgins take over for departed coacn Mike Terry, who will be the head coach for the new CIF boys lacrosse program at Santa Barbara High School. All three local public high schools and the four public junior high schools have added boys and girls lacrosse for the 2015 season. The move bodes well for SBCC as the two year college has been depending quite a bit on lacrosse players who move to Santa Barbara to attend the school. Now the Vaqueros will have a steady influx of local homegrown lacrosse players to go along with the players who come in from all over the state to attend SBCC.

Garcia was a three-time WCLA national champion player at Colorado State University played at CSU during the 2010, 2011, 2012 & 2013 seasons. The Rams won titles in 2010, 2011 & 2013 and were runners-up in 2012. Following her undergraduate career Garcia enrolled at NCAA Division II Regis University for her Masters of Arts in Counseling and discovered the NCAA considered one of her WCLA years a redshirt year. The midfielder played a season of NCAA lacrosse to top off her collegiate year. Additional lacrosse experience comes from running tournaments and lacrosse outreach in the Philippines.  The Portland, Oregon native resides in downtown Santa Barbara and will also be an assistant coach at UCSB.

Higgins will assist Vaqueros head coach Maddie Garcia. The former head coach for the club at University of Florida in Gainesville, Higgins played goal keeper for both the WCLA team and the NCAA Division I team at Florida after prepping at Vero Beach High School in Vero Beach, Florida. Her collegiate career started before Florida added an NCAA program so Higgins played for the WCLA team her first two years. Her junior year she tried out for and made the first year NCAA program in 2010. Higgins returned to Gainesville to get her P.h.d. in Clinical Care and coached the club at Florida from 2013 to 2014.  Higgins is a native of New England but some family moves took her south to the Sunshine State before high school. The Townsend, Massachussetts native resides in downtown Santa Barbara and will also be an assistant coach at UCSB.

The Vaqueros open up the season on the road at UC Irvine and Biola College on Saturday, January 31st. The game at UC Irvine is at 11:00am and the game at Biola is at 4:00pm. 

Irvine, CA - SBCC traveled a small group of players to the Irvine Beach Breakaway Tournament at UC Irvine today.  The Vaqueros were 2-1 in three scrimmage games against two WWLL Division 2 opponents and the UCLA B Team.  In the first contest SBCC were tied 5-5 with the Bruins at halftime before edging them 10-8 for the final score.  The second game of the day was with Biola University. SBCC won that contest 13-3 after leading 5-1 at halftime. In the third and final game for both teams Cal State San Marcos led SBCC 5-4 at halftime and held off the Vaqueros to win 8-6. 

It was the first time playing together since SBCC bested Humboldt State 15-1 on October 4th.  San Marcos is a favorite among WWLL D2 teams to qualify for the final four of the WWLL in April so the close two goal result with them hints at the possibility of a post-season appearance for the Vaqueros.

Rookie goalie Jordyn Reardon (La Jolla, CA) had a breakout day between the pipes and made key saves for the Vaqueros who were on their only road trip of their fall ball season. SBCC wraps up fall ball at the SB Fall Brawl at UCSB November 22nd. 

Santa Barbara, CA - SBCC opened their Fall Ball season with a 15-1 win over visiting Humboldt State. The Vaqueros led 9-0 at halftime on a series of fastbreak goals and some settled play.  Statistics were not recorded but rookie goalie Jordyn Reardon (La Jolla, CA) had her first save. That's first as in first since Reardon prepped at La Jolla High School but did not play lacrosse. It was her first time playing in a lacrosse game. The same was true for first year players Meredith Bowen (San Rafael, CA), Maria Herrera (Lompoc, CA) and Brittney Petersen (Oxnard, CA). The four rookies got their first action outside of practice.

The seeming sea of white-side-out Santa Barbara Lacrosse reversible jerseys, with 15 players in them, contrasted the last game of the spring season. In that last game SBCC were with only 9 players on the field in a 10-11 loss to Loyola Marymount on April 13th. Compared to how they finished  last season the Vaqueros start to 2014-15 on October 4th is full of promise for good things to come. 

Santa Barbara, CA - Mike Terry has been selected as the next head coach for the SBCC women's lacrosse club. Terry comes to Santa Barbara by way of Lacrosse Unlimited after a playing career at Kean University in New Jersey but has had some career moves along the way to becoming a Vaquero. After prepping at Columbia High School the Maplewood, New Jersey native entered Cabrini College where he played for one season before transfering to Kean. Terry felt he had a late start in lacrosse and had to work to catch up to be ready to play at his high school. He had picked up a stick on his own but he didn't join a team until ninth grade so he felt behind compared to other kids in his neighborhood and had to outwork more experienced lacrosse players to get a spot on the team.

Says Mike, "I first picked up a stick in 7th grade but didn't start playing organized lacrosse until my freshman year of high school. I started out late but I strongly believe hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. I knew I was behind the eight ball but countless hours of shooting in the backyard and hitting the wall got me to where I needed."

Terry's work paid off and he became a two-time all-league player while at Columbia High School.  In 2007 he was a mdifielder on a Cabrini team that won a conference tittle to make an appearance at the NCAA Tournament. The following year, after transfering, he helped Kean to their first conference title in school history to make his 2nd NCAA tournament appearance. After Terry's collegiate career he continued playing post-collegiate lacrosse in the American Lacrosse League with Tri-State Lacrosse.

Terry is here in Santa Barbara as administrative assistant for the Santa Barbara Lacrosse Association (SBLA) and coaching SBCC will be one of two roles he relishes. Both the SBLA and the SBCC women's lacrosse club will benefit from his organizational and people skills. He managed the store so well for Lacrosse Unlimited in Montclair, New Jersey he was asked to coordinate the opening of a new location in Paoli, Pennsylvania and make sure day one and year one went well for the company and the public. 

Terry started out coaching as the JV coach at Columbia in 2011 and quickly moved up after his team won the Essex County JV Championship. In 2012 he was an offensive coordinator for the varsity team that advanced all the way to the New Jersey state quarterfinals. Managing the stores for Lacrosse Unlimited kept Terry out of coaching for a while. He got back into it coaching for NXT Sports in Philadelphia with a unique program called Trashcan lacrosse that focuses on playing fast with outside the box (no pun intended) concepts and drills. 

The sport of lacrosse has done so much for me and now I want to pass on my knowledge, passion, and love for the game to the next generation of lacrosse players,"  said Terry.

Mike Terry Coaching Philosophy

"Earned and not given," is the basis of all of it for me says Terry. "Nothing is ever given to you. If you want something you have to put in the work and effort to get there. I believe you play your best lacrosse when you're having fun. There is no better feeling than getting a hard earned W and looking back knowing you left it all out on the field, and had fun while doing so."

Staff Starts

One of the staff coaching with Terry will be first-time assistant coach Alexandra Benjamin who played goal keeper at Trinity College in Connecticut from 2001 - 2004. The Weston, Massachussets born and raised Benjamin is one of three sisters who played goalie in college. The first sister, Sarah Benjamin, was a goalie at UCSB from 1995 - 1998. The second sister, Lisa Benjamin, played goalie at Davidson College in North Carolina from 1997 - 2000 and is the career saves leader for the Wildcats with 679 saves in 3,350 minutes in 60 games over four years. Alexandra is the youngest of the three sister goalies and started for Trinity her junior and senior seasons. She was in a Goalie Nation Feature at the end of her junior year in 2003. Alexandra works at UCSB in the Design & Construtcion Services Department in charge of capital improvements.

Terry plans to fill one additional assistant coach position by the start of the regular season. SBCC students Elise Bonfiglio, Kendall Johnson and Savanah Miller-Lambridis round out the leadership roles for SBCC women's lacrosse. Together the five of them will guide the Vaqueros through the fall ball season.