The Year of the Jaguar?
The story of the first half of the soccer and volleyball season has been the dominance of Cooperative – and the story of the second half is likely to be whether the Jaguars can maintain that record with everyone else gunning for them.
Cooperative has gone through the first half without losing a single contest, varsity or junior varsity, soccer or volleyball. (Indeed, the only blemish on the school’s escutcheon is a tie with Christian Learning in junior varsity girls soccer.) No team has ever done that before in League history.
Here’s the rundown in each sport.
Boys Soccer
The Jaguar girls have been a perennial power in soccer, but to have the Jaguar boys team atop the standings with an undefeated 3-0 record at midseason is something novel. The Jaguar boys have not, in fact, won a soccer championship since 2004, the year the League was founded.
But this year’s Jaguars look like the real deal, outscoring its opponents 22 to 6 in its first three games, winning in each case by at least three goals and embarrassing Cambridge. The defending champions, 11-1.
The Jaguars have developed many ways to hurt their opponents. They have four players who have scored at least three goals this season (a goal per game) and their leading scorer, Juan Manuel Vasquez, is on track, with nine goals, to set a new League scoring record.
Still, there could be bumps in the road ahead. Both Christian Learning, now in second place, and International have shown they can play the Jaguars evenly for most of the game. They just have to find a way to do it for the whole game.
Cambridge is continuing a recent trend (now close to becoming a tradition) that the defending champion in the boys League tends to have a horrid first half the following year. However, the team has come on strong after slow starts in the past. Never quite this slow, perhaps, but in Junior Sanchez they have a player who can, on a given day, change the odds in a game. .
Girls Soccer
The Jaguar girls mastery in the first half was less unexpected than that of the Jaguar boys since the girls have most of the players back from a team that went undefeated last year, but the degree of their mastery has nonetheless been impressive.
The Jaguar girls varsity at mid-season is undefeated, untied – and unscored upon. They went through their first half opponents with a combined score of 18-0. And there haven’t even been all that many shots on the Jaguar goal, thanks to a tough and aggressive defense (not to mention a domineering offense).
All the same, both Christian Learning and International played respectable games against the Jaguar girls. (The Cambridge game was the only blowout -- 11-0.) If the Eagles and Griffins can find a way to crack the Jaguar defense they could threaten the Jaguar girls with something that they haven’t had to endure for several years: Defeat.
The Cambridge team doesn’t look like a threat, but it should not be forgotten that two years ago they stung the Jaguars with a gritty 0-0 tie.
Boys Volleyball
Again the Cooperative boys are the surprise of the year. At 3-0 they have already won more games this year than they won all last year.
At the beginning of the year they had only one known spiking threat – Juan Alfredo Abuawad – but have developed several more in Mateus De Carvalho, and Milan Marinkovic. Wilson Salvatierra has proven much more than adequate as the team’s main setter.
Still, Christian Learning forced the Jaguars to a third set and can put up a front wall that is just as intimidating with veteran Danny Canaviri, tenth grader Andres Larsen, and freshly returned –from-the-US-junior Jesse Hallock. The Eagles, moreover, are known for coming on strong in the second half.
Nor can the Griffins be counted out. They have the best record in the League over the last several seasons, and are always well prepared. What they seem to lack this year is a big hitter, but there are several players who could step up to fill that bill in the second half.
Winless Cambridge would seem to be less of a threat, but they love to upset the Jaguars as they did two seasons ago when the Knights beat the Jaguars for their lone win of the year in the playoffs.
Girls Volleyball
What is perhaps most impressive about the showing of the Jaguar girls is that they started strong – and have seemed to get stronger each week. Their most impressive victory of the year was a straight sets defeat of the defending champion Eagles right before the Santa Cruz Day break.
But again the story is the same: The Jaguars can’t afford to let down their guard.
International forced the Jaguars into a third set. Cambridge had a 26-24 set against Cooperative in the opening game of the season, for which the Lady Knights were clearly unprepared. Christian Learning has a reputation for saving its best effort until the end of the year.
Still the Jaguars have plenty of height, and a lot of experience. Coach Misty Skidmore’s teams, moreover, have shown remarkable resilience and ability to rally when challenged.
