Daily Journal Girls' Lacrosse Player of the Year: Woodside's Madi Escobar

Actually, the word “enjoy” does not fully explain Escobar’s passion for the game.

“I love it so much. I was always trying to tell people to try out. I was always so excited when my friends’ younger sisters said they wanted to play,” said Escobar, a recent graduate. “I got a lot of new players to come (out for the team). I got, like, five girls, who had never played before, to come and play (this season).

“It’s fun to get people talking about lacrosse more.”

But Escobar is not simply an evangelist for the sport. She’s actually one of the top players in the Central Coast Section. From her midfield role, Escobar led the Wildcats 98 goals and 16 assists after scoring 70 goals as a junior.

That offensive onslaught helped the Woodside to a share of the West Bay Athletic League’s Skyline Division championship, along with Burlingame, all of which led Escobar to be named the San Mateo Daily Journal’s Girls’ Lacrosse Player of the Year.

“Lacrosse-wise, she is fantastic,” said Woodside head coach Stacey Myers. “She is almost perfect. … But beyond her lacrosse skills, she’s an athlete. She knows how the game works, she’s really good at timing things and knows where to be and how to optimize herself on the field.

“We can pretty much rely on her to do everything.”

Escobar, who plays attacker for her club team, STEPS, played more of a hybrid attacker-midfielder role for the Wildcats, which put more emphasis on her offense and enabled her to pace herself as she stayed on the field for most of the game.

Escobar said she’s used to more hockey-like shifts for a club team – going all out for a few minutes before being subbed off. At Woodside, she found out real quick she needed to be in better shape if she was going to be on the field all game long.

“It was a really weird transition,” Escobar said. “I remember it was halftime of a match and I thought the game was over. I thought it was exhausting. I said, ‘I need to start [conditioning] more.’”

Such is the case when an athlete loves what they are doing. But being such a high-level talent in an area that is considered a hotbed for lacrosse, how did the private schools miss out on her?

Turns out, there was a time during her freshman year at Woodside when she thought she might like to transfer to powerhouse Sacred Heart Prep or even Woodside Priory. Most of her club teammates played at those schools and her club coach, Wendy Kridel, is the head coach at SHP.

Ultimately, Escobar decided Woodside was where she needed to be. She got enough high-level competition during the club season and looked at playing at Woodside as a chance to work on her skills, have fun outside the ultra-competitive environment of the club scene, and most importantly, spread the gospel of lacrosse.

“We need more of these (types of players) to go to public schools. She could have gone private. She definitely has the game,” Myers said. “Embracing that this was not her club level, she realized she could make our team a lot better. … I think she is aware that she has better lacrosse skills. Ninety percent of our team hasn’t played before. She doesn’t have that attitude of, ‘I’m better than these people.’ She just truly loves lacrosse. She would stay after practice, ask girls to stick around and work with them.

“She’ll do the right thing and try to make others better. Even though she could just run our whole team without using other people, she always includes other people.”

But when it comes to game time, Escobar flips the proverbial switch and becomes a goal-scoring demon. Her lowest scoring output of the season was a two-goal effort in a 9-5 win over Sequoia. She had 18 games when she scored three goals or more and 12 games of five goals or more.

And then there was her performance in an 18-13 win over Woodside Priory and the Panthers’ Stella Axe, who would edge Escobar for the WBAL Skyline Division Midfielder of the Year award.

“I was actually pretty shocked (with my scoring this season). My senior year, I was so amped that I would get lost (in playing the game),” Escobar said. “It was against Priory, I came off the field thinking I had scored, like, three goals. My dad said after that I had scored 13 goals.”

It was one of two times this season she scored in double-digits in a game. She had 10 in an 11-10 win over Gunn the game previous.

Through it all, however, Escobar’s goals were two-fold: one, help her teammates become better players and two, to have fun.

It was that second goal that led Escobar to change her college plans. Initially, she wanted to play at the highest level she could, possibly for one of the big Division I programs back East.

But working her way through many club seasons and seeing how cut-throat the college recruiting scene was, Escobar had a change of heart.

“The recruiting process was pretty challenging. … I thought I wanted to go to the East Coast and go DI. But during recruiting, I started to lose the desire to play DI. That just wasn’t my style of play,” Escobar said. “I kind of realized … that I need to focus on where I want to go to school and not just where I want to play lacrosse.”

Escobar will continue her playing career at Division III Chapman University in Southern California.

“I wanted to be in California,” Escobar said. “So even if I’m not playing lacrosse, at least I’m near the beach.”