Boys’ soccer has early season success

Eric Tilley
January 8, 2010
Filed under Sports

This season, the Corona boys’ varsity soccer team has been fulfilling the high expectations that have been set for them in both divisional and tournament competition.

“To prepare for this season, our main focus has been on fitness,” junior goalkeeper Matt Bersano said. “We have plenty of talent on the team, so I think we’re doing everything we need to do in order to have a really good year.”

The team started the regular season with two decisive victories before entering the Tempe Diablos Soccer Classic. In this tournament, the Aztecs have won five straight games. They will be playing against Desert Mountain this Saturday for the championship.

“I think our main advantage in this game will be our speed and movement with the ball,” Bersano said. “If we play all of our cards right, we will have a really good shot at winning the whole tournament.”

Corona’s team also recently traveled to California for a very competitive high school tournament. The Aztecs ended up placing fourth out of 12 teams after making it to the semi finals.

“We got knocked out of the tournament by the same team who beat Brophy in the round before,” junior Graham Hemmingson said. “It was disappointing to lose, but I think we got a lot out of the game in terms of finding things we can continue to improve on.”

For the rest of the month of January, the team will be playing against other high schools in itsdivision. These games will be very important in order for the team to secure a high seed for the state playoffs.

“The state playoffs will be our biggest competition this year,” junior Dylane Ndoye said. “It will be close if we have to play against Brophy, but I think we’re definitely one of the top contenders for the championship this year.”