This edition features a breakdown of where we stand as a state in terms of high school lacrosse and a few captain releases.
As always, please forward to a friend!
Boys High School Reset
I was talking to a friend about lacrosse the other day and he said, “I wish I could see who is coaching where and who is in the sanctioned league and who isn’t.” In other words, he wanted a breakdown of where everything currently stands. My friend played in the state in high school and college and coached for a long time but has been out of the scene so I felt this would be a great topic to cover. Hopefully this is helpful to you and could be a great email to forward to a similar friend.
Sanctioned/Non-Sanctioned: As it stands today, there are 39 sanctioned teams and 12 to 13 non-sanctioned teams. I say 12 to 13 because last I heard it’s unsure what Spanish Fork will do moving forward. There were 45 teams last season so already sanctioning has grown the boys side of the sport. The sanctioned teams are broken into the following regions:
Region 2 (Team - Coach)
Bingham - JD Barnes
Copper Hills - Shawn Lovell
Herriman - Wyatt Katsos
Jordan - Ian Spendlove
Riverton - Alex Dooley
West - Sean Zuckerman
West Jordan - Colton Williams
Region 4
American Fork - Tyson Poole
Corner Canyon - Aaron Ika
Lone Peak - Bruce Tucker
Pleasant Grove - Nick Mastergeorge
Skyridge - Greg Saunders
Westlake - Dannyl Horne
Region 5
Bear River - Coj Miller
Box Elder - Damon Andreasen
Green Canyon - Troy Oldham
Logan - Beau Olson
Mountain Crest - Cade Cooper
Ridgeline - Joel Skidmore
Sky View - Kevin Mann
Utah Military Academy (UMA) - Reed Keller
Region 6
East - Adam Eddinger
Highland - Neil Blaney
Judge - Braeden Daly
Olympus - Matt Duke-Rosati
Park City - Mike Persky
Skyline - Joseph Sanchez
Region 7
Alta - Brandon Horoba
Brighton - Chris O’Donnell
Juan Diego - Michael Burbank
Lehi - Dave Moreau
Mountain Ridge - Trent Bangert
Waterford - Jack Matthews
Region 8
Mountain View
Orem
Provo - Christian Burrup
Timpanogos - Kelly Edwards
Timpview - Taylor Redd
Wasatch - Chris Baer
Non-Sanctioned
Bonneville - Layne Van Orman
Bountiful - Peter Jordan
Davis - Dillon Yocom
Farmington - Christian Taylor
Fremont - Brian Goldsberry
Northridge - Dylan Gerber
Maple Mountain
Roy - Ryan Olson
Spanish Fork
Syracuse - Kari Gallego
Viewmont - Lance Weeks
Weber - Jeff Pendergast
Woods Cross - Joshua Hanks
Big thanks to Jeff Brzoska for putting together a master list. A couple of notes:
Neil Blaney at Highland is the longest tenured head coach at their current school. He’s entering his 8th season at the helm of the Rams. Obviously other coaches on this list have been coaching longer, but Blaney has been with the same school at the same position the entire time. There are also others who have been with their programs for longer, just in different positions. In fact, I found a list from September of 2012 with the names of each head coach. Only Blaney, Troy Oldham, and Brandon Horoba are on the list. Oldham was with Sky View and Horoba with Brighton. 22 of the coaches for 2020 are new to their school/position.
Former players now coaching: A bunch of names on this list also played high school lacrosse in Utah. I don’t want to put a number to it in case I miss anyone but if you’ve followed the league for awhile, you’ll recognize who they are. I counted at least 11.
Schedules: Each team can play 16 regular season games. Regions 2, 4, and 5 have opted to play other region teams twice, home and away. Regions 6 and 7 have opted to play other regions teams once. I haven’t heard what Region 8 is doing. Teams will be seeded for the playoffs using the RPI system with the top 16 making the Division A bracket and the rest will fill in the Division B bracket. The non-sanctioned league will play each team once to compose the standings with the top 8 teams making the playoffs.
New teams: The only new team that hasn’t had lacrosse under its banner in one form or another would be Provo High School. I know players from Provo have played on other schools teams, but never under the Bulldogs name. UMA had a JV Only team last year and Lehi comes back after a short hiatus. Mountain View makes its return as well (2011). Still waiting on Murray or Cottonwood to commit. Obviously I think fans want to see Hunter, Taylorsville, Kearns, etc start programs but we’re likely 4-5 years away from that.
The future: Both Weber and Davis school districts have said they will sanction in 2021. This leaves players in the Nebo district without a home. It’s also unsure what is going on in Saint George and when/if they will have teams join the fray.
I’ve interviewed several coaches in the last few weeks. Be sure to check them out!
Still working on getting all the girls side figured out as well. Please shoot me a note if you have details!
Captain Season!
A handful of teams have announced captains for the 2020 season. First up is Rutgers with former Alta/Corner Canyon LSM Garrett Bullett picked to lead the Scarlet Knights.


The Utes also announced its captains: Josh Stout (Lone Peak), Jimmy Perkins, Seth Neeleman, Liam Donnelly, and Aaron Fjeldsted (Lone Peak).
And last but not least, BYU named Tyler Mumford, Tyler Clancy, and Jared Kotter (Spanish Fork).
Don’t forget to follow the Utah Lax Report on Facebook! You can also follow me on Twitter.
If you missed the first four issues, you can view them here:
ISSUE 1 | ISSUE 2 | ISSUE 3 | ISSUE 4 | ISSUE 5 | ISSUE 6 | ISSUE 7
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Please shoot me a note if you have something you’d like me to cover: tim@timhaslam.com
Don’t forget to forward to a friend.
— Tim Haslam