The562’s coverage of Lakewood Athletics is sponsored by J.P. Crawford, Class of 2013.
Lakewood girls’ soccer is ready to turn a positive corner, and there’s no sugarcoating what it’s going to take to compete with the top half of the Moore League.
“If we want to keep up with these good teams we need to practice twice as hard,” coach Pole Luna said. “We have to do more tactical teamwork and practice more with the ball instead of just conditioning, so we have to have double sessions to get everything situated. And we also go double conditioning. We spent two months getting into shape because we have players who don’t play club.”
Despite feeling like the underdogs with a young roster, the Lancers are confident they can improve offensively and be more competitive.
“I think this year is going to be better because our chemistry is really good,” junior Adrianna Tanaka said. “As long as we stick together everything will be great.”
“I can say so many good things about my team and I’m pretty positive that we should be doing a lot better than these past two years,” Luna added.
Tanaka will be the biggest key to Lakewood’s success from her attacking midfield position. She has been working on making her shots more dynamic during the offseason, and also knows she has to be a more consistent leader for the newcomers.
“I lead by example because I know that if I wanted to look up to someone I would want to see how they’re doing things so I could potentially live up to them,” she said.
“I don’t know what I would do without her,” Luna said of Tanaka. “She is the one who creates plays. She makes runs and is all over the place like a superstar.”
Tanaka (left) will be trying to create opportunities for new forwards like sophomore Layla Kawamura while she plays alongside fellow midfielders like experienced juniors Allie Honeycutt, Abigail Lopez and Giselle Torres Barbosa.
Pole said he is very confident in returning sophomore goalkeeper Valentina Dominguez and her ability to captain a defense made up of returning sophomores Jessica Gonzales, Maddison Dominicus, Vanessa Castillo Madrid and Verity Moreno. Most of those players were part of Luna’s Bancroft Middle School teams so he can stick to his preferred tactics.
“We have to keep an attaching mentality,” Luna said. “I don’t want to be the defensive team that just gets stuck in the back. Like Millikan for example, we know what they bring to the table. So we’re just going to try to battle it out and attack to create as many opportunities as we can.”
Luna is preaching to his team that the mental aspect of league games against teams like Millikan, Wilson and Poly will be the tipping point.
“We need to keep ourselves composed as a team and make sure the communication and support levels are high,” he said. “It’s just staying focused and not being distracted by the fact that we’re playing a top team. We must continue doing what we’re doing. Everything that we practiced this whole year. Keeping us together is the main key. Regardless of what the score is, we have to continue working.”
