Last year, the boys’ soccer team wrapped up the winter season with an impressive 18-3-3 record. They were ranked #1 in the Open Division of the CCS playoffs, but lost to Monte Vista, 1-0 on a penalty kick in the CCS final.
Despite the departure of graduating seniors, Coach Mark Cisneros is confident his team will bounce back. “We were hit hard this year by graduating seniors, we’re hit hard pretty much every year,” Cisneros said. “What we do to mitigate that is we develop the players at the JV level to get them ready for the varsity level, so this year I think our team is actually really strong. Maybe, depending on how you see it, stronger than last year’s.”
This year, through five games, the team is 3-1-1, with the lone loss against Archbishop Mitty, 1-3.
“We always make goals every year. Our goals are to win the league championship, go to the CCS, win the CCS, go to the Norcal championships, and win the Norcal championships, and that’s something that we’re not going to ever change. That’s something that we’re always going to be striving for,” Cisneros said.
Although the team had to say their goodbyes to graduating seniors last season, this year welcomed many familiar faces, more notably senior team captains Ronaldo Corona and Nico Hernandez, who are both defenders, and midfielder Kevyn Trejo. “Our three captains are all really super solid, experienced players that have been with the program for about 4 years,” Cisneros said. All three captains are a part of the starting team, mostly composed of core returners.
The team also welcomed some new players – Diego Carbajal, who’s the only sophomore on the team, along with juniors Ronaldo Quintana and Daniel Posadas. Making the jump from JV to varsity is not a linear process, and one major hiccup so far this season has been lack of communication between players. “Something we need to work on is just talking amongst the team,” Corona said. “Most of the players are returning players, but those who aren’t returners, I think, need to work on speaking more and being more vocal on and off the field.”
Despite them being new to varsity, they all play integral parts in the team that highlight its strength and success. “I think our strength is our character, we have really good, committed, driven players that are good in the classroom and on the field, and they all have respect for each other,” Cisneros said. “I think those things are very important when you’re talking about any type of team.”
This year Seaside and Greenfield move into the Gabilan. Both schools make for enticing matches. “Just playing two new teams we haven’t played in many, many years is going to be fun,” Cisneros said.
Getting ready for league means playing the private Catholic schools – Archbishop Mitty, Bellarmine, Branham, and Berkeley. “[They] really get us tested for league, get us ready for the playoffs because [they] are all playoff teams,” Cisneros said. Although the team lost 1-3 against Archbishop Mitty in the preseason, that doesn’t reflect what the team’s performance will be next time around when they play against them in league. “It was a tough loss. A lot of people were sick so it definitely hurt, but we definitely will be bouncing back,” Hernandez said.
The loss in last year’s CCS Championship game has only served as motivation for how the team wants to execute their league performance on the field this year. “The previous two years we went all the way to the final and we came short, losing both finals, so this year we’re obviously going for that CCS championship and winning it all this year,” Corona said.
With league right around the corner, the team has big plans and goals they want to achieve this season, redemption being a big one. “We feel like we have unfinished business, so we have to take care of it. It’s already two years in a row that we got to the final and we didn’t win so it’s gotta be this year,” Cisneros said.
