Sticking With It

Christian Brothers Junior Charlie Ibarra is taking control of her future and going the extra mile by playing Lacrosse outside of CB for a competitive club team.

But one of CB’s upperclassmen gained an interest in the obscure sport at a young age. In sixth grade Ibarra began reading about the sport and became friends with many people in the lacrosse community. Once she reached high school Charlie followed the advice of one of her friends, a member of Granite Bay’s Men’s Lacrosse team, who encouraged her to join the Christian Brothers team.

Charlie  immediately took to the sport like a duck to water.

“I got hooked on it really quickly because it’s a mix of a lot of sports and takes a lot of speed” Ibarra claims with a nostalgic joy.

But Charlie soon looked to higher levels of competition than high school offered her to gain greater instruction, experience, and skill. As she became a more complete as a player and playing beyond high school became a reasonable goal for her she kicked her work into overdrive.

The hard working LAX girl made the move to join American River Lacrosse, a year-round club pulling players from the greater Sacramento area. But one team is not enough for Ibarra, who takes every opportunity possible to get better, and utilized her chance to become a member of Folsom United.

Charlie believes that all of her ambition and hard work will help her reach her ultimate goal of attending Santa Clara University on a lacrosse scholarship.

“High school doesn’t really get you well noticed and if you want to make it then you have to play in the Bay Area so that’s kinda what it takes” she firmly states.

But the ambitious athlete is not perfect and takes a lot from the influence of her talented team mates. She plans to make some drastic changes to her playing style before the end of her high school career.

” I usually play defense which is a lot of getting in people’s faces” she informs The Talon  ” but I really would like to play Center and I have to get up my stick skills which is why I train a lot.”

If all goes well for one of CB’s brightest athletes she will ascend from the midst of her fellow players to the top of SportsCenter’s top plays.