The Varsity Boys Lacrosse Team prepared for its 2015 season after graduating 13 seniors by hosting a jamboree featuring Beaverton, Liberty and Wilson yesterday. The jamboree honored their lost teammate Cooper Hill, junior, who died in a car accident in late February. The team painted a circle on the field located where Hill used to stand on his ‘man-up spot’.

The first play of the game West Linn stood with five men on the field and passed the ball around to remember their teammate.

“Leaving Cooper’s man up spot open was the perfect way to remember him. It was an emotional moment for us,” Ryan Klose, captain, said. “We will be playing for Coop this year, we know the Hill’s will be watching and we will do our best for them.”

The Lions also used the three short games to help prepare for a tough pre-season.

“We are playing three very tough out-of-state teams in Florida so playing in the jamboree helped us get used to playing with each other,” Klose said. “We have been practicing very hard because everyone wants to beat us, so it motivates us. 

West Linn will be playing very high calibre East Coast teams during a spring break trip to St. Petersburg, Fla. When they return from Spring Break, they play Corner Canyon, a top Utah team, and Metro League Sunset, who they faced last year in the state quarterfinals.

“It’s tough losing almost half of our starters and having to replace them this year,” Dylan Tuor, junior midfielder, said. “But we are preparing the best we can to try and get some wins in the stat book before we head into the season.”

The Lions are ranked tenth in the West according to adrln.com, ranking them the highest of any Oregon team.