Jake Vasquez was much younger — and still shorter than his father — when he first picked up a lacrosse stick. Redwood High won its first North Coast Section title in 2013, which was enough to interest young Vasquez, who was still nearly a decade away from playing his first game with the Giants.
Vasquez, now a 6-foot-4 Redwood senior, is nearing the end of one chapter with the No. 2 seed Giants set to host third-seeded Tam in the MCAL semifinals on Wednesday. Along the way, Vasquez has been a two-time All-MCAL first team standout who helped lead the Giants to back-to-back league titles the past two years.
“Jake (Vasquez) is just a fun kid to coach,” Redwood head coach Blake Atkins said. “He’s an exceptional leader. I’ve been coaching Jake since he was in sixth grade and he was always pretty long and rangy. He was always one of the biggest players on the field and he’s always had a natural talent for the game.”
As the legions of Vasquez fans at Redwood High know, Vasquez is a dominating two-sport athlete. In the winter, he has been a two-time All-MCAL first-team basketball selection the past two seasons, and was a sophomore on the 2021-22 MCAL championship team.
“Jake is an athlete,” Atkins said. “Basketball translates well to lacrosse. He’s always had the tools in basketball and in lacrosse: working around the net, great speed, good stick work, great instincts and athleticism. He’s a natural.”
In a loss to the college basketball ranks, Vasquez is going to focus solely on lacrosse next season when joins the Fightin’ Irish at Notre Dame.
“I’m going to miss playing basketball, but I’ll play a lot of pickup games at Notre Dame,” said Vasquez, who admitted it was a tough choice between lacrosse and basketball in college.
“Notre Dame is a great fit for me,” said Vasquez, who plans to major in business. “There’s the academic side that fits for me. They have great school spirit and a great lacrosse program. I couldn’t be more excited.”
Several Giants will be playing college lacrosse next season, including seniors Harrison Curtiss (Kenyon College), Jackson Lesher (Colorado College), Eddie Lin (Bates College) and Nolan Ewing (Denison University).
“This is the best class we’ve had at Redwood in a long time,” Atkins said. “This is the best team I’ve ever had here. These guys are ready to win the title.”
So far, the experience of winning the NCS lacrosse championship has eluded Vasquez and his teammates, although they came within a hair’s breadth last season before losing to powerhouse De La Salle, 13-10, in the final.
The Giants finally got “the DLS monkey” off their backs this season with a 10-3 victory over the Spartans on March 15.
“This season feels a lot more confident,” Vasquez said with an eye to everything that has led the Giants to the verge of another shot at the NCS title. “We have a lot of seniors who are confident. We have a lot of good players and a lot of those players have played together for a long time.”
Vasquez continued, “We played youth and club sports together. After this season we’re going our separate ways. We knew this would happen, but we’re happy to be together together now and I hope we can win the MCAL and NCS titles. That would send us away perfectly.”
