The562’s coverage of Lakewood Athletics is sponsored by J.P. Crawford, Class of 2013.
The562’s coverage of St. Anthony athletics is sponsored by Jane & B.I. Mais, Class of 1948.
There’s another local matchup on Friday night when St. Anthony travels to Lakewood in its season opener. The rematch from last season is set to kickoff at 7pm.
When the two teams met a year ago there were familiar faces on either side after a handful of transfers made their way over to Lakewood from St. Anthony. While most of those players have now graduated, there will still be some familiarity this year with first-year Lakewood coach Mario Morales.
Morales previously spent 10 years as Saints head coach and led them to their first CIF–SS title in over 60 years in 2016. Morales was also an assistant coach at Lakewood last year, and will look to copy and paste the result from a year ago when the Lancers beat St. Anthony 45-3.
“It’s no less important than our league games because it’s a Long Beach game, if you will,” Morales said of the matchup in the months leading up to the season. “We want to look good in our community and play hard to show people what we’re doing over here so that’s just as important as our Moore League games.”
His counterpart is St. Anthony coach Jeff Magdaleno, who led the Saints to the CIF-SS Division 10 championship game last season in his first year. Friday’s matchup is the Saints’ season opener, and due to scheduling conflicts, they won’t have a bye week after not playing a game in Week 1.
The opener begins a gauntlet for the Saints, with Torrance and Summit on deck in the coming weeks. After starting 0-4 last season, Magdaleno says he’s taking it one game at a time with a winning mindset each week.
“We just attack each week like it’s our only game and we go out to win every game,” said Magdaleno ahead of the season. “It is a tough schedule and we know that we’re going to have some challenges, but we want to compete in every game, be in every game, and adjust to get better each week as we go towards league.”
While it isn’t the opener for Lakewood, it is a chance at a fresh start to the season. The Lancers had a forgettable game at Carlsbad last week in a 43-0 loss to open their non-league schedule.
