Flag Football Becoming a Lacrosse Player Favorite at Torrey Pines (Calif.)

Camille Samarasinghe sent her clearing pass to a streaking Laurel Gonzalez against Carlsbad (Calif.) in Torrey Pines’ 15-4 win on Monday.

It was a reverse of a connection from the fall when the two seniors teamed up on Torrey Pines’ first girls’ flag football team. Gonzalez was the quarterback, Samarasinghe a go-to receiver.

“Laurel and I have pretty much the same connection in lacrosse if not better than we did in football,” said Samarasinghe, the Falcons’ goalie. “I see her running down the midfield when I’m ready to clear the ball and I tell her to go long. This time, it’s my turn to hit her, her turn to make me look good. It’s fun to play together.”

This is the first year that the pair have played three sports for Torrey Pines. Samarasinghe comes off a winter in which she played on the girls’ basketball team that won back-to-back North County Coastal League titles for the first time, while Gonzalez keyed the soccer team’s surprising California Interscholastic Federation San Diego Section Open Division championship. The addition of flag football in the fall gave a new opportunity that many on the Falcons’ lacrosse team chose.

“Literally my entire senior class, I think,” said former Virginia star and current Torrey Pines girls’ lacrosse head coach Kaitlin Doucette. “They had like 120 kids come out.”

Torrey Pines kept all its seniors on the varsity flag football team. Gonzalez was thrilled with the chance to play flag in her last year of high school. The midfielder’s future coaches at Johns Hopkins didn’t mind either.

“All the coaches are thrilled to see me and are constantly supporting me if they see something on social media,” Gonzalez said. “It’s really nice to have that support from my lacrosse coaches. They love people that are multi-sport athletes.”

Doucette sees an opportunity, not a threat, from flag football. Like lacrosse, flag football will be a new sport in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

“It’s a huge ground swell out here,” Doucette said. “With soccer being king in Southern California, it provides another fall sport option. What I’m looking at it as, is a potential breeding ground because all of my top-level kids are gravitating towards it already, so there have got to be places where I can develop and find some new athletes within that program. My plan is to do some camps with flag football.”

Gonzalez can’t help but dream about the Olympics. Being part of the first CIF flag football league and a Division I lacrosse recruit gives her two paths.

“I’ve definitely thought about it a lot,” she said. “I’ve gotten a lot of remarks from other people saying, ‘You have to do this.’ It would be crazy if it worked out that way. As a senior in high school, it’s hard to predict what I’ll be doing at that time.”

Gonzalez and Samarasinghe played lacrosse early with the RC Rotten Cheeseburgers rec program that they now help coach. They picked up flag football together in elementary school when their fathers formed the first all-girls team in the local Friday Night Lights league.

“Every Friday night we would come out, beat the boys, make them cry,” Gonzalez said.

And at her two older sister’s lacrosse games, Gonzalez would beg her father to throw the football with her.

“I have a very vivid memory in my mind of her as an 8- or 9-year-old playing catch on the sidelines at Torrey Pines while I was coaching her older sister during games,” Doucette said.

Even at a young age, Samarasinghe was a big target for Gonzalez. Now a shade over 5-10, Samarasinghe remains a favorite target and “one of the most clutch receivers.”

Gonzalez hit Samarasinghe in the final seconds for a 14-13 win over Brawley (Calif.) in the CIFSDS Division I quarterfinals, then she found her again in the final seconds for a 21-18 win over Grossmont (Calif.) in the semifinals.

“You see each other, you lock eyes, you connect; I knew it was coming to me,” Samarasinghe said. “… Laurel was going to find me because she has the best arm in the county, probably in the country.”

Cal lacrosse commit Alina Hsu, the team’s leading goal scorer, was another big part of the Torrey Pines offense as a shifty runner and receiver.

“I think every person that made one of the top two teams for CIF was a lacrosse player,” Samarasinghe said. “Almost all of them. There’s a good amount of athleticism on our lacrosse team.”

The football team lost in the championship game to conclude a 16-1 season. Gonzalez was named the first Player of the Year in CIF history.

“Laurel Gonzalez is the most impressive athlete I’ve ever had,” Doucette said. “She could very well win three CIF titles in a year, which is wild. Those people don’t exist anymore. She might be Player of the Year for soccer, and if we win, maybe for lacrosse, too. That’s insane.”

Only one other lacrosse player has ever been two-time CIF Player of the Year. The soccer Player of the Year has yet to be named.

Pam Kalinoski, an assistant soccer coach at Torrey Pines who registered the second-most assists in a season at North Carolina behind Mia Hamm, believes Gonzalez could play college soccer at a high level, too.

“She was saying she plays just like Lionel Messi when she plays soccer,” Doucette said. “She understands. She’s not the kid busting it up and down the field all the time. She’s smart. She knows how to read the defense and evaluate what’s going on and find the openings. She’s the same way in lacrosse. It’s like the IQ piece is next level.”

Samarasinghe and Gonzalez have turned their athletic efforts to lacrosse, their main sport now. The Falcons are returning CIFSDS Open Division champions. They face a huge challenge from defending CIF Southern Section Division 1 champion Foothill-Santa Ana on Friday.

“’Lo-Go and I jumped a little bit late into our lacrosse seasons because we had our other seasons going on,” said Samarasinghe. “Honestly, we jumped back in, no issues at all. Our team is so good. We just had to pop back in our and do our jobs. Everyone else does their own jobs. We get it done together.”