All-Area Boys’ Soccer Player of the Year: Success started early for La Cañada’s Lawrence Ku

LA CAÑADA FLINTRIDGE — Since day one, La Cañada High senior forward Lawrence Ku had been conditioned and trained to become the next in what has been a series of great Spartans strikers.

As the 17-year-old and his teammates concluded their season in February, Ku reflected on his time at La Cañada and on his great fortune to have played with and learned from some of the area’s best talent.

That training session began his freshman season when Ku scrimmaged alongside the school’s greatest scorer, Armand Bagramyan.

“I remember coming into practice and Armand and I played the same position,” Ku said. “He was just so far ahead of me and I learned so much watching him. He practiced hard and was one of the best high school scorers in the country. It was just a really great experience.”

It was a record-setting 2012-13 season for Bagramyan, who broke the school’s single-season mark of 41 goals set by Josh Henderson by tallying 43 scores.

Before Bagramyan moved on to UC Santa Barbara, the senior was named the All-Area Boys’ Soccer Player of the Year.

Besides sharing the same position, Ku will have something else in common with Bagramyan as he was also unanimously selected the 2015-2016 All-Area Boys’ Soccer Player of the Year by the sports writers of the La Cañada Valley Sun, Glendale News-Press and Burbank Leader.

Ku is the third La Cañada High player to win the honor in four years and joins Bagramyan and fellow teammate Nicholas Pereira, the 2014-15 Player of the Year.

“Lawrence could have won this award just on his leadership,” said outgoing La Cañada High Coach Alex Harrison. “He always kept the intensity up and set the tone for each game and provided that offensive spark we needed.

“He was our tempo-setter and was very aggressive with the ball and would go to goal right away.”

Harrison maintained a winning tradition in his five years at La Cañada as the program tallied a total record of 71-30-22, won two Rio Hondo League titles and advanced to the postseason each year.

Perhaps with that context, Ku’s ascension shouldn’t have come as a surprise.

Last season, the Gettysburg College-bound forward was voted the team most valuable player and was an All-Area first-team selection after scoring 20 goals and 17 assists as the powerful No. 2 option to Pereira.

Ku and Pereira led La Cañada to a historic season as the team rallied from a third-place finish in league to the semifinals of the CIF Southern Section Division VI playoffs for the first time since 2007.

La Cañada also earned its first-ever bid to the CIF Southern California Regionals.

This season, Ku again racked up the stats and was the area’s leading scorer with 25 goals and 19 assists, which gave him 53 goals and 46 assists for his career.

Besides the All-Area honor, Ku was named a CIF Southern Section Division VI first-team selection and a league honorable mention.

As for his team, La Cañada bested last year’s squad in finishing runner-up in the Rio Hondo League to Monrovia, but fell a round shorter in the postseason as the Spartans were defeated in the Division VI quarterfinals.

“I was proud with how we played this year, but I also think we could have done better, especially in league,” Ku said. “I think we were as good as Monrovia, but you have to give them credit because they got the big wins.”

Like last season, the Spartans produced a strong one-two punch with Ku taking over the No. 1 spot and senior forward Nathan Oh stepping in as the team’s second option.

Oh, a University of San Francisco-bound All-Area first-team selection, totaled 21 goals and 12 assists.

“I think we played together so well because we communicated,” Oh said. “We knew what we were capable of doing and just executed. Plus, you knew that Lawrence was going to create opportunities.”

Win or lose, the Spartans could count on Ku’s productivity, passion and point-scoring.

While La Cañada struggled to a 3-3-3 start, Ku tried his best to snap the Spartans out of their funk.

In the team’s biggest loss of the season — a 4-1 setback to eventual CIF State Southern California Division IV champion Valencia on Dec. 18 — Ku scored the team’s lone goal in the 64th minute.

“Valencia was definitely the best team we faced this year,” Ku said. “I think some teams try to avoid those types of games, but playing against them only made us better.”

Ku and Oh both scored a pair of goals in the Spartans’ 6-0 victory over Glendale on Dec. 30 that brought the team to 3-3-3.

In league play, the Spartans rebounded to go 8-1-1 with the two most important matches taking place against Monrovia on Jan. 22 and on Feb. 8.

After the teams tied,1-1, in January’s meeting, extra importance was added to February’s match, although the Spartans were short-handed.

Oh received a red card against South Pasadena on Feb. 5 and was required to serve a one-game suspension, which came against Monrovia.

Against the Wildcats, Ku scored two goals and the Spartans tallied three second-half scores. Those efforts weren’t enough, however, as the Wildcats wrapped up league via a 4-3 victory.

“I would have loved to have been there and we lost it on a penalty kick,” Oh said. “Lawrence said it was a bad call and that cost us.”

The loss came 11 days before the start of the CIF Southern Section playoffs, where Ku put on a brief, but spectacular show in scoring six goals.

A big chunk of that scoring came in the 10-0 blitz of visiting Hawthorne Math & Science Academy in the first round of the Division VI playoffs.

Ku scored four goals, while Oh added two goals and four assists.

The victory brought about a well-known playoff adversary in Prep League champion Firebaugh, whom the Spartans had defeated in the first round of the playoffs the previous season, 4-2, on the road.

“That was one of those games where you knew that Firebaugh wanted to beat us, they wanted to eliminate us because we beat them last year,” Oh said.

Back in Lynwood again, Ku scored his team’s lone goal in the 48th minute as La Cañada again bested Firebaugh, this time, 1-0, in the second round.

“Lawrence has this ability to put his team on his shoulders and score,” Harrison said. “We had a lot of tight games and he would find a way to score regardless of who we played.”

The back-to-back postseason victories had a familiar feel as the Spartans appeared destined to at least repeat the same playoff success in 2014-15.

Ku had the Spartans believing when the senior took advantage of a defensive breakdown and scored in the 12th minute to give them a 1-0 lead at Covina in the quarterfinals.

Unfortunately for the Spartans, their drive for a return trip to the semifinals was halted, as Covina scored goals in the 60th and 65th minutes and clinched a 2-1 victory.

“I still think about that game and I still think we could have won,” Ku said. “It just didn’t go our way that day, but we played hard and came up short. I can’t be too upset. It was the end of a great run.”