Lacrosse launched at Sonoma Valley High School

Sonoma native Mary Gallo, a sophomore defender for the UCLA lacrosse team, spent much of her time in high school as part of the Dragons club lacrosse team. More importantly, she spent much of that time trying to introduce lacrosse as an official varsity sport for Sonoma Valley High School.

She and her friend Reese Dobson had each been early driving forces for a lacrosse team since their eighth-grade year as campaigners for a club lacrosse team in Sonoma. Over the course of a couple years and many talks with school principals, they managed to start the town’s first club lacrosse team in 2017. But even this solution had its shortcomings.

“There's the financial barrier and traveling takes up a lot more time than just playing local teams in your area,” Gallo said. “So, gaining interest for the club team was quite difficult. We had a lot of girls from outside of Sonoma who were playing with us because there were just not enough girls who had the means to play for a club team.”

The main drawback to the club team was that financial barrier. Fees included equipment and uniforms, as well as payment for referees and transportation to compete in games.

“It was hard to show the school district that we had an interest in lacrosse because girls would only be interested if they knew that they could play for their school,” Gallo added.

She then started a high school club at SVHS, hoping to garner such interest from the student body to give to the school district. They had a few throw-arounds to help teach some of the basics of lacrosse, but the lack of incentives such as PE credits or varsity experience discouraged commitment.

“I took over as athletic director in 2018,” said Sonoma Valley High’s Mike Boles. “The leaders of that youth lacrosse program came and met with me and the principal asking about adding lacrosse as a high school athletic program. We talked about it. The timing wasn't perfect at that time and we didn't have the facilities to accommodate an after-school program.”

The youth interest would eventually be key, as the presence of youth feeder programs into the high school strengthened the ability for the high school to justify the addition of lacrosse.

Mary Gallo’s mother, Susie Gallo, while not directly involved with the high school program, was still a huge part of its development. She coached the youth program in Sonoma from 2016 until the pandemic in 2020. She also played the sport as a student at Hamilton College. Her efforts helped to vouch for the team’s support and got the project off the ground through her work with the youth program.

“As soon as a group of parents started the youth program here in Sonoma, the district was ready to start planning for high school teams,” Susie Gallo said. “The upgrades to the athletic facilities were approved right as Mary and Reese were starting their club at the high school, so there was a lot of synergy there in the beginning.”

The other key coach in the development of the program was former Petaluma coach Lou Biaggi, who joined the program as the girls’ head coach and helped to guide the logistical processes for the sport. Biaggi’s daughter, Gianna, SVHS ’13, played Div. 3 lacrosse for four years at Kenyon College in Ohio.

“He had gone through this process in Petaluma getting CIF programs at Casa and Petaluma high school,” Gallo said. “So having his perspective on how to just be patient and really work with the school district to make it happen was invaluable.”

Biaggi’s ground-level view gives tremendous insight into what the program means to the players and the community, and he still is awed at the development of the team.

“I’ve been coaching for 18-19 years, I've never been able to do this, be part of a startup program,” Biaggi said. “I was in Petaluma, but that was so long ago, you know what I mean? It's different today and it’s kind of cool.”

The turning point for the program came with the arrival of the Sonoma Valley Sports Complex. Until then, there wasn’t a feasible way to give all the spring sports sufficient access to the facilities including lacrosse. The new complex gave the school district and the athletic department the green lights needed to add the program.

This year, they launched a boys and girls team, each of which athletes with a wide array of experience in lacrosse. Two current players on the girls team, Kerry James and Julia Lage, had been players on the lacrosse team before the pandemic hit and helped to garner student interest at the high school to assemble the current roster.

“We went around and just talked to all of our friends and started getting them introduced and would go out on weekends with sticks and show them a little bit of how to play,” Lage said. “We spread the word as much as we could.”

With all the necessary players interested in joining the team, the next challenge was the funding for equipment and travel. Biaggi stepped up and delivered big time; nearly all of the money needed for the program was funded by Sonoma Valley High School boosters and the NorCal Lacrosse Foundation, giving the teams a strong foundation to stand on.

“You have to really thank boosters tremendously for financing the total cost of all the equipment and uniforms,” Boles said. “We didn't have lacrosse here, so we didn't have any gear. We didn't have any uniforms.”

Now a fully outfitted team, it gives the current and former players for the club team tremendous satisfaction to see. Instead of a more exclusive sport to only the most interested and committed, the school can offer a more inclusive and rewarding experience to their student body.

“It’s definitely more welcoming for the new players, they don’t feel pressured that they have to stay [away] because of expenses or anything like that,” James said. “Just having the option to enjoy a new sport and have a new experience I think really draws them to the idea of playing.”

Both teams have rallied around each other and supported the others development; oftentimes going to each other’s games and cheering each other on. The program is taking baby steps in terms of competitiveness due to the players’ inexperience, but it will take a few years for the former youth players to completely fill the ranks of the high school roster.

“I mean, I definitely wanted it to be something that happened for me during my years, but I'm still really happy to see some of those girls that I went to school with and watching them start to pick up the sport,” Mary Gallo said. “It's awesome to see them have this opportunity and it's what I've always wanted. I’m just so happy to see this happening for them because it was my dream. So, I'm thankful that we finally got it to the high school.”