Boys’ Soccer finishes season

By Angel Palomino

PHHS Boys’ Varsity Soccer team lost against San Jose Varsity Soccer team 5-1 last Monday at San Jose High Academy. Piedmont scored a goal in the first half; as the game started to drizzle, San Jose scored two in the first half and three in the second half . The current League season record for the Boys Varsity is one wins, eight losses and two ties.

“It’s our early game. We start off really slow, and then we play catch up for the rest of the game,” remarks Varsity Forward Jonathan Avalos.  Usually, the team does not score early on, and is playing defense for the first half.

The Boys’ Varsity team is currently in C-Division, and they are hoping to move up the league by the end of the season.

“Being on the team its just mental mistakes, and its different as in C-Division its normally two good teams and the other team falls off in skill, but this season there is four, and its just small mistakes we have,” clarifies Varsity Coach Manny Esayas.

The players practice and do warms-up. A common exercise they do is run around the football field a few times.  They also practice their blocking and shooting skills afterwards.

“Tactical base drills, we based it (practice) on previous games, correct the little mistakes and move forward,” explains Coach Esayas.

“We have to get better, and we need to get better motivation. We have people that don’t try as much,” states Goalie Nathan Avalos.

With Coach Esayas leading the team for his second year, he has developed a unique bond with the team.

“(The coach is) good, really fitness oriented, likes running and tries to motivate us to play,” remarks J. Avalos.

“We are alright, but we can do better,” explains Varsity Right Back Christian Landaverde.
Varsity latest game was yesterday at Piedmont Hills High School, at 5:30pm against Del Mar on the football field.

PHHS Boys’ JV Soccer team lost 4-1 to San Jose last Thursday at San Jose High Academy.
Their League season record currently is three wins, six losses and one tie.

The JV team is also in C-Division as well.

For their practices they do sprints, stretch, shoot, pass, and do separate exercises modified game to game.

“We are good overall, lately its been frustrating, so many of our players are injured,” elaborates Coach John Ventura.

Coach Ventura started coaching this year.

“We were down 2-0 in the first half against Santa Teresa, and then we came back and ended 3-2 in the second half after listening to his (Coach) speech,” explains Right Defense Tony Medeiros on Coach Ventura’s motivating skills.

“Our team morale is good, just we had a lot of our teammates moved up to Varsity,” clarify Coach Ventura.

On the team relationship “We are both good and bad with each other, during the games whenever someone isn’t doing their job we argue,” remarks JV Captain Juan Reyes.
Their latest game was yesterday against Del Mar at 3:15 pm at the football field.