Laguna Beach Girls’ Team Picks Skiing Over Soccer : Preps: Fourteen varsity players decide to hit the slopes and forfeit the Artists’ final two games.

When the Laguna Beach girls’ soccer team held its first preseason meeting months ago, prospective team members agreed to play for second-year Coach James Gapp under one condition. Unless they were allowed to go skiing during the annual February week of school vacation known as Ski Week, they would not join the team.

Based on this verbal agreement, 14 members of the varsity team and some junior varsity team members left Saturday for the slopes. So, while the Laguna Beach players frolic at Mammoth Mountain, Laguna Hills frowns about its fate in the Pacific Coast League.

Laguna Beach has forfeited both its Pacific Coast games this week--Tuesday’s against Costa Mesa and today’s against Estancia--dashing any hopes second-place Laguna Hills (6-1-1 in league) had of winning a league championship or sharing it with first-place Estancia (7-1).

“It’s really unfortunate,” said Laguna Hills Coach Kevin Macare. “It affects us a lot. You can’t say Laguna Beach would have automatically lost. It doesn’t give us the opportunity to tie or win.”

Going into Tuesday’s games, Laguna Beach was 1-6 in league, but Laguna Hills and Estancia were tied for the league lead. An Estancia victory combined with Laguna Hills’ tie against Trabuco Hills gave Estancia a one-point lead in the standings.

If Laguna Hills beat Century and Laguna Beach defeated Estancia, the Hawks would have won the league title.

“We know it was slim, but . . . ,” Macare said.

Slim turned to none when Laguna Beach hit the slopes. Gapp said the forfeits were unfortunate, but that a Laguna Beach upset of Estancia was very unlikely.

“Realistically, they don’t have a beef,” he said. “That’s a scenario that probably wouldn’t have happened. I don’t think we could have beaten them. Estancia is too good.”

Some coaches can’t understand why a school would bother to field a team if it wasn’t committed to finish out the season.

“You either have a program, or not,” Macare said. “If you have a team, you’ve got to be there for your games. It doesn’t make any sense. What’s the point?”

Gapp said the point is that if he hadn’t given the girls this latitude, there would be no Laguna Beach girls’ soccer team.

“We wouldn’t have enough girls for a team,” Gapp said.

Gapp says the team is committed to practice and the games they choose to play. In fact, the Artists were fourth in the league before the forfeits.

Interestingly, the Hawks were the beneficiaries of Ski Week in 1991. Laguna Beach and Laguna Hills were tied for third in the league, but the Artists begged off the tie-breaker and the Hawks advanced to the playoffs.

“Their coach called and said, ‘Go ahead, my girls want to go skiing,’ ” Macare said.

But Laguna Beach is taking initial steps to change the Ski Week conflict. Gapp said Athletic Director Tom Klingenmeier has sent a notice to coaches addressing the subject.

“I wish it would change. I wish soccer were more serious,” Gapp said. “If we had a good season, they would be fired up to be here this week.”

Times correspondent Brad Falduto contributed to this story.