Kicking It on the Soccer Pitch

MORIARTY

Boys

Head coach: Jordan Allcorn, 14th season; 93-129-7

Record last season: 7-11-1

Returning starters and letter winners: 9/12

Strengths: “I think one of our strengths is we have good pretty depth compared to what we’ve had in the past. We had 36 kids show up for tryouts. There’s a lot of excitement with the new fields within the community. Our defense is strong. With our depth, a lot of our returning talent is defensive-minded players. We should be a challenge to score on."

Weaknesses: “What we’re continuing to work on is our production and our finishing. A lot of times, we get in great position and do all the hard work and we don’t have the composure to finish. We’re older, but we’re not real experienced in competitive matches. You get that experience with the games you play. A lot of the guys haven’t played a lot of competitive games. So having that composure in the final third is something we’re focusing on in practice and hopefully it becomes if not a strength, make it not a weakness anymore. If we can do that we should have a chance to win a lot of games.”

Key Players: Isaac Dominguez (Sr., GK), a fifth-year starter who was honorable mention All-State the past two years and the first-team All-District last season.

Sam Pearce (Fr., MF), “as an eighth grader, he was our most consistent player. He’s a very solid defender. I’m hoping he continues to stack on that for the next several years."

Reece Thackerson, (Sr., D), pairs with Pearce to form the heart of he Pintos defense.

Bruno Vaquera (Sr., MF), a multi-sports athlete who also runs cross country and track and wrestles, “He’s a key player for us.”

Expectations and outlook: “My expectation is we should be very competitive in every game we play. From a win-loss perspective, I’m aiming to have a winning season; that would be a good accomplishment and to finish in the top-two in district is something achievable for us. If we do that, it should qualify us for state. But it’s definitely challenging. We’re one of the four smallest public schools in the classification (4A).”

Girls

Head coach: Valerie Luker, 13th year as Pintos head coach; 82-132-7 overall

Record last season: 7-9-3; no playoffs

Returning starters and varsity members: 12/8

Strengths: “Our defense is new and we’re training two new people for it. But I feel like it’s strong. And we have a lot of talent. Even a couple of the girls that just came in, they didn’t have any experience but they’re very athletic.”

Weaknesses: “Our offense is starting to come together. You have to get the chemistry going and there has to be that flow.”

Key Players: The team is definitely young as the top three goal scorers from last season are all still underclassmen in Brooklynn Olivas (Jr., MF), who had 15 goals and an assist. Lindsey Rebarchik (So., F/MF) added another six goals and Rachel Olson (Fr., D/MF) pitched in with three scores. Isabel Urioste (Jr., MF), Lillian Chavez (Jr., D) and Lilia Hernandez (Jr., MRF) are all also expected to make strong contributions.

Expectations and outlook: “I think we’ll do well. They’re pretty cohesive for a newer team.”

EAST MOUNTAIN

Boys

Head coach: Colton Oord, first season as Timberwolves head coach

Record last season: 11-6-3; lost 1-0 to Santa Fe Prep in Class 1A-3A quarterfinals

Returning starters and letter winners: 6/unknown

Strengths: “The boys are really hard working. No matter what I throw at them, they’re really coachable. They’re doing things they haven’t done before and no matter what I throw at them, they’re going for it. I’m forcing them to do some things in training that are new and they are there for learning and growing as team.”

Weaknesses: “The biggest thing is when I first started working with them, some of our touches were off. They’re not used to playing 1-2 touch soccer. They would take a lot of extra touches and try to force through balls so they’re getting that experience. That’s the biggest thing, reading the whole field and getting the ball off our feet a little bit quicker.

Key Players: Rob Loftus (Jr., MF), “He’s a great mentor and everybody looks up to him, which is pretty cool because he’s just a junior. He’s growing into his role and is a commanding presence in the midfield.” 

Trevor Head (Sr., F) is the team’s leading returning scorer with four goals and four assists and now he’s also taking on the role as a leader. “He’s another huge leader, always working with guys on the side whether it’s the subs or the JV players. And he really controls the tempo of the game up top.”

Kyle Hoffman (Jr., CMF), is a dominating presence in the midfield that must be accounted for by every opponent. “He really works through things and is a facilitator.”

Expectations and outlook: “We kind of need to get into more of a possession type of game so that’s one of our biggest expectations and one of the biggest things we’ve been talking about. But we’re continuing to grow the program. We’re up to 37 kids in the program and we have a pretty big freshman class so we have a full JV team for the first time in a long time.”

Girls

Head coach: Jason Burnette, second season as Thunderwolves head coach

Record last season: 7-11-1; no playoffs

Returning starters and letter winners: 10/15

Strengths: “I would say cohesion and leadership. A lot of these girls grew up playing AYSO together awhile. A lot of us played club together. And you know, having six seniors is huge in terms of your leadership, and just getting the right tone set. And now we're pretty happy about that. I do think they stick together and they work together well."

Weaknesses: “I think we've got to finish games when they're close. So one, we have to finish better. Play the full 80 minutes. And two, we really need to up our scoring. And we've got Berkeley Flammang was our lead scorer last year as a sophomore, she's back as a junior. She's a great player, but we've got to help her. We can't count on one person to carry that for us.”

Key Players: Ryley Allen (Sr., D); Ava Podzemny (Sr., D/MF), Sienna Valdez (Sr., MF/F), Savannah Gomez (Sr., MF/D). All four are four-year starters and Valdez and Gonez each had three goals last season. Flammang (Jr., F) put up 10 goals with three assists. Jaycelyn Head (D/So.) was the team MVP. “Really, just all of our starters are able to contribute something.”

Expectations and outlook: “We do have high expectations for this group. We really expect to get back to state. We've gone to state I think four of the last six years, we didn't go last year. They take eight teams, and it's my understanding we were ranked ninth. So we were close, even though it wasn't our best year. But I mean, we expect to have a winning season and we expect to get back to state.”