The Eagles have a surprisingly geographically diverse roster. While the bulk of the players who have chosen to attend this school with a 1,400 student population, are from in-state, they have players from Delaware, New York, Utah and Arizona, as well. Concordia’s best player, sophomore Dustin Seguin, is from Calgary – one of the three Canadian players on the squad.
Will McMinn has been building high school programs all over the Los Angeles area. A member of the first St. Ignatius prep team in San Francisco before playing his college ball at UC Santa Barbara, McMinn moved to SoCal and was surprised by the lack of youth and high school opportunities. So he started a youth league in Orange County and built, by his count, a dozen prep teams.
Four years ago, he figured he’d give college ball a shot. He heard there was a struggling group of players at Concordia University, a small college located in Irvine, so he decided to apply for the job. Like many of his previous ventures, the Eagles are now on the cusp realizing its potential. No. 9 Concordia convincingly beat both No. 11 St. Mary’s and No. 23 Western Oregon to improve to 7-0 and is on track to qualify for the national tournament for the first time.
“We really have some lofty goals,” McMinn said. “We call them ‘B-hags.’ Big, hairy, audacious goals. The boys bought into it. It’s a great group of young men and we have very strong leadership from our seniors and our captains. In addition, we have very good players. It’s working out well this year.”
Since the program started in ’09, it has steadily improved. Last year, the Eagles even beat conference heavyweight Cal State-Fullerton in the regular season, only to fall to the Titans in the SLC tournament and barely miss out on a trip to nationals. McMinn believes he’s doing it my recruiting players who may not necessarily be the most coveted, but the ones who are the most well-rounded.
For more: http://www.laxmagazine.com/blogs/author/coyne/03.05.2012_at_10.00_a.m._by_Jac_Coyne
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