To hear long-time Bishop\u2019s lacrosse coach Steve Sepeta tell it, defender Charlie Mossy is tough and aggressive anchoring the Knight defense along with teammates Oscar Hertz and Dom Haley, in front of goalie Nathan Huynh.
\n“He\u2019s a great kid,” says Sepeta, in his 17th year coaching at Bishop\u2019s, but, “You can\u2019t be soft and be a good defender. He has a tough side to him. He\u2019s not afraid to get in there.”
\nThe sophomore, who is big already at 6-feet-3-inches-tall, 220 pounds, and growing bigger, immediately moved into the starting lineup last year as a ninth-grader and did well. “At Bishop\u2019s, we\u2019re a small school,” says Sepeta, “so it\u2019s not unusual for an underclassman to be starting. Charlie stepped in and was effective.”
\n“He has matured on and off the field this year,” continues his coach. “His play this year has gone beyond the typical underclassman.”
\nMossy, amiable and easily approachable, has a close bond with Haley, who he plays on the offensive and defensive line with on Coach Joel Allen\u2019s Coastal League champion football team. Wearing uniform number 60 to Haley\u2019s 55, Charlie says, “I played next to Dom on every play” through the Knights\u2019 9-1 season that took them to the CIF Division III title game.
\nThe way Mossy explains it, he and others kind of coaxed Haley into playing on the lacrosse team, in exchange for teaming up with him on the football team. “It\u2019s some convincing,” he chuckles. “We\u2019re like, \u2018Hey, you\u2019re playing [lacrosse].\u2019 It\u2019s not even convincing, it\u2019s, \u2018You\u2019re playing.\u2019”
\nMossy, 16, who enrolled at the private school as a freshman, thrives on the competitive and physical nature of lacrosse. He acknowledges the advantage of being the “hunter” as a defender in pursuit of the “hunted,” but he insists offensive opponents even things out when they get a chance. “You\u2019ve been pounding on them, so they do that back to you,” he says. Boys lacrosse is a very different sport from girls lacrosse: boys\u2019 rules allow defensive players to use their stick repeatedly on opponents\u2019 padded shoulders and helmeted heads, theoretically “going for the ball,” while girls are whistled when their stick approaches attackers\u2019 head or neck areas.
\n“I like the long stick” he gets to use as a long-stick defender, an exclusive position, admits Mossy. He follows in a line of siblings who played lacrosse: Travis, who was an offensive midfielder; John, a former goalie; and Blake. John and Blake played for Bishop\u2019s rival Santa Fe Christian.
\nDanny Mitchell, the Knights\u2019 offensive coordinator in football, positively gushes over Mossy\u2019s skills on both sides of the ball. He led the team in 2017 in sacks on the defensive side, with five. He was second in TFL\u2019s (tackles for a loss) behind his close friend Haley. He had 31 total tackles. The offense averaged 53 points a game, leading to nine straight wins, and the left guard was an unheralded part of that.
\nSays Mitchell, who teaches sixth-grade physical education and ninth-grade health, “As a freshman, his first start was the state championship game. He was a wide receiver and had scored a touchdown. We were short (on the line) and put him on the offensive line, and he played super well in the state championship game” (though Bishop\u2019s lost the contest, after 14 straight wins in 2016).
\n“He\u2019s such a good athlete. He played himself onto the line,” says the offensive coordinator.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To hear long-time Bishop\u2019s lacrosse coach Steve Sepeta tell it, defender Charlie Mossy is tough and aggressive anchoring the Knight defense along with teammates Oscar Hertz and Dom Haley, in front of goalie Nathan Huynh. “He\u2019s a great kid,” says Sepeta, in his 17th year coaching at Bishop\u2019s, but, “You can\u2019t be soft and be […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":267881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Charlie Mossy, Bishop\u2019s lacrosse defender and football lineman","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}