The Cross Keys boys’ soccer team is hoping to build on last season’s playoff success.
Last year, the Indians finished the regular season with a 11-5-1 record and were 6-2 in region play, but the team fell apart in the semifinals and lost 3-0 to The Westminster Schools’ team.
Nonetheless, first-year coach Laura Canepa-Redondo, who also teaches chemistry and physical science at the school, is optimistic. Canepa-Redondo took the reins after former longtime coach Bryan Wallace transferred to another position in the DeKalb school district.
Canepa-Redondo says her players learned from the defeat and they are showing a growing maturity and a better understanding of how to play and work together.
“They all want to reach that common goal,” she said.
During spring practice, that goal resulted in a lot of drills aimed at team building and communicating and working together.
She said the team has benefited from the high quality of players coming from Cross Keys’ feeder schools.
“We have a lot of skilled students who are ready coming into the program because of their background experiences in other leagues,” she said. “A lot of them have been playing since a real young age.”
She said a couple of players stand out from the roster of 34 on the varsity and junior varsity teams. Jordy Banegas, a senior team captain, scored five goals in the season opener against Redan High School, which Cross Keys won 10-0. Senior soccer player Dalia Alvarez scored two goals in the game.
Banegas’ fellow senior and team captain Luis DeJesus “kept our boys going,” she said.
The team shows strength in how it works together, she said. “I like how they talk and communicate with each other and give each other direction on where to go,” she said.
Canepa-Redondo says as a first-year coach, she has been working on building rapport. The task is made easier, she says, by her being a teacher at the school. “A lot know me from being a teacher in the classroom. So they already know the expectations.”
The track team enters the season coming off its highest state ranking – in the top 15 overall.
Senior soccer player Dalia Alvarez scored two goals in the girls’ initial game this season.