On the nights before home games, it’s usually not too hard to find the members of the Santa Ynez Valley Union High girls soccer team.
The players, who form a tight-knit group, gather at the home of a teammate to enjoy spaghetti, lasagna or another high-carb dinner during their traditional “pasta feeds” in preparation for the next day’s game. While pre-event “carb-loading” is popular among endurance athletes, the dinners also serve an additional purpose for the Pirates.
“Bonding and food,” junior Natalee Yamasaki said of the two main ingredients of the get-togethers.
“And talking about the game,” added sophomore Julia Callow.
“Yeah, that too,” Yamasaki said with a laugh.
Yamasaki can be forgiven for forgetting, however, as she and Callow are two of four captains who have let their play do the talking for a young Santa Ynez team this season. The Pirates, who host Lompoc on Thursday, are entering the final stretch of the season in contention for their eighth straight year with at least a share of the Los Padres League championship as they also look to make a deep run in the CIF.
They are joined as captains by juniors Kat Rocha and Valerie Kahn. Head coach Rob Cantrell said the quartet has been vital this season in keeping the Pirates – who, at 4-0-3, are unbeaten in league play – in the race to reach those goals.
When selecting captains for the season, Cantrell said he wanted players who would be able to pick the team up when the going got tough.
“They’re very, very unique individuals,” he said of the captains. “Skill-wise, all of the players on the team have something to offer. These are the four most experienced players, though, and they have the ability to call on a certain amount of composure when they’re on the field. They’re good examples to the other girls. They’re the ones that can steer the ship on the field.”
Rocha, an attacking midfielder, has been the team’s biggest offensive threat this season. She has scored a team-high eight goals and leads the team with nine assists. Yamasaki (two goals, three assists) and Callow (one each) are more defensive forwards, while Cantrell said that Kahn (three goals, two assists) is one of his most versatile players and can excel at any position.
Rocha said having such a strong bond with her teammates makes her job easier.
“With them behind me, and our defense also, I know that there’s someone strong there and I can count on them if I get beat or the ball goes past us,” she said. “That’s really helpful for us attacking players to know that if we lose the ball we’re not going to get scored on.”
Despite their contributions on the scoreboard and in the stat sheet, the captains’ biggest contributions may come from their ability to bring out the best in those around them. Each of the players said they make an effort to lead by example with their play.
“On teams, players usually all have a similar mindset, so if someone’s down it spreads throughout the entire team and everybody just gets into this weird funk,” Yamasaki said. “We have to try to get them pumped back up again. If we start working hard, everyone else will pick it up too.”
Added Kahn: “We can’t get upset about losing the ball, we just have to go back and get it.”
Those efforts have not gone unnoticed by their coach.
“None of them are verbose,” Cantrell said. “They’re not rah-rah, which can be good and serve a purpose, but it’s good that these girls lead by example and that’s what is more important to me. They definitely give words of advice, but they work hard.”
While the team relies on the captains to provide leadership on the field, Cantrell is quick to point out that each player depends on the others around them. When the entire team is working together in unison is when it is at its best.
“We’re definitely like a machine,” Rocha said. “We need each part to work to run smoothly and be successful.” An example of that can be found in the team’s Dec. 15 home game against Santa Barbara, a larger team that Santa Ynez hasn’t had much success against in recent years.
“I think with the night game under the lights, we just all got so pumped and were like, ‘Let’s do this,’” Yamasaki said. “We ended up winning 2-0, which was a shocker because we usually don’t do that well against Santa Barbara, so that was awesome.”
In order for the Pirates to claim another league title this year, they will need to win out in league play, including against first-place Cabrillo, a team they will also need to stumble against someone else along the way.
In Santa Ynez’s first game against Cabrillo, on Jan. 12, the Pirates played the host Conquistadores to a 3-3 tie. “The next time we play them, we’re going to be so ready,” Rocha said of the Feb. 7 rematch in Santa Ynez. “We played really well together overall and I was really proud of us. We were just working extremely hard.”
Cantrell, in his seventh season at the helm, is also a youth coach and mentored several of his current varsity players in club leagues. He said he has seen tremendous development in his players as they have adapted to the style and play of soccer at Santa Ynez.
While they have a tall task ahead of them, the players and their coach seem confident that this season’s goals can be reached and their best soccer is still ahead of them.
“We definitely have our work cut out for us,” Cantrell said. “We want to get over any illnesses, any hurting, any boo-boos, whatever, so that we can come out and play our best soccer the first Saturday of March and the second half of the CIF final.”