La Jolla's field hockey team, coached by Amanda Combs Warford, is ranked number two in California. It's right there in the rankings, if you look it up on MaxPreps.
This is the golden age of field hockey at La Jolla High. This team, for Fall 2024, is the best team on campus. No other team on campus, in any season, has held a ranking this high in recent memory.
I had a conversation with Warford before the Vikings' game at Canyon Hills Wed., Oct. 30. I said something about the squad being ranked 11th in the state.
Warford, on the sidelines preparing her players for the match coming up in half an hour, quickly corrected me. She pulled out her cellphone and looked up the ranking. "It's on MaxPreps. They have us as second in the state," she said.
Wow. As Carly Simon sang, "These are the good old days." These are the days that people in the future will refer back to when they talk about the best field hockey teams in the history of the school.
La Jolla is achieving that level now. LJHS's varsity, in the fall season or any other sports season, is the top team on campus by ranking. The only other team that would even be in the conversation would be Coach Kelly Drobeck's first two Open Division champions in beach volleyball in the San Diego Section in Spring seasons of 2022 and 2023.
That's something to crow about.
As she went over pregame preparations with her players, Amanda told them, "You are the better team." That's saying something. Consider the location and circumstances: In the old days, that would have been blasphemy on Canyon Hills' home field. It was Canyon Hills, and Scripps Ranch, as well, who held the dominant positions in CIF San Diego for years. For decades.
Paula Conway, former LJHS Athletic Director, naming Amanda Warford as the Viking field hockey coach eight years ago was the best move she could have made.
The dream has come to fruition.
And looking ahead, the future looks even brighter. "We only have four seniors," said Warford. "On our JV A and JV B teams, we have freshmen who are vying for positions (in the program)."
The feeder programs at Muirlands Middle School are already beginning to bear fruit, in quality players who have developed their stick skills and who don't have to rely only on their athleticism to stay in the game. Now they are bringing top hockey skills with them to be offensive, as well as defensive, standouts.
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