East L.A. Soccer Squad Rolls On

Among the best-guarded sports secrets in Los Angeles the last couple of years has been the phenomenal success of the East Los Angeles College soccer team.

For whatever reason, the Huskies never received much recognition, even when they were weaving two of their--or anyone’s--greatest seasons.

Last month, the soccer team won the 1990 community college state championship with a 24-0 record by beating Moorpark College, 1-0, in the finals at Hayward in the San Francisco Bay Area. In those 24 matches, the Huskies scored 100 goals and allowed only 14. They breezed through their South Coast Conference schedule.

The previous season, East L.A. College was 17-1, losing only to eventual state champion Orange Coast College in the southern regional semifinals. In fact, of 63 matches in the last three years, the Huskies have won 57, tied four and only lost two.

Part of that credit for the success has to go to Coach Orlando Brenes, who revived the program in 1988 after the school had eliminated it 10 years before. IronBrenes was a defender and captain of the last East L.A. team to win or share a state title before last season. That was back in 1975, when the Huskies and Chabot College played to a 2-2 tie (no penalty kicks were then used as tiebreakers).

That qualifies Brenes, 35, to compare the emotions of the two championship seasons.

“You feel them both,” said Brenes, who was born in Costa Rica and had been a physical education teacher at Bell Gardens High School since 1981. He guided the soccer team there to a 179-36-32 record and the 1984 Southern Section Division III championship. “The only problem as a coach is you can’t go out there anymore,” he said.

With the kind of players at his disposal, he didn’t have to.

The core included freshmen brothers Jose and Julio Umana from North Hollywood High, Celio Garcia from Belmont High, Adolfo Carranza from Bell Gardens High and Diego Reyes, formerly of Magnolia High in Orange County.

Julio Umana led the team in scoring with 25 goals, including the winner against Moorpark in the title game. Jose, a freshman defender, was the South Coast Conference most valuable player and a top prospect who has had professional contract offers, Brenes said.

Garcia, called by Brenes one of the best defenders in the state, will attend Cal State Dominguez Hills in the fall. Reyes registered 13 shutouts during the season and Carranza contributed two goals in the southern regional finals last season against Orange Coast College.

Other key players were freshman forward Jimmy San Martin from La Salle High in Pasadena, who led the team with 15 assists; midfielder Jose Moran, a transfer from Cal State Los Angeles, and Carlos Lopez, a 5-foot-9 forward from Taft High in Woodland Hills, who despite his size has attracted the attention of recruiters from four-year colleges.

“We returned nine lettermen from the (1988) team. Six of them were starters,” Brenes said. “That was the start of realizing we could do it.”

Brenes, however, is also quick to credit his assistant coaches--Ramon Gomez, a former All-Southern Section selection at Bell Gardens High, and Bob Osegura.

“They played a very important role,” Brenes said. “They are as much a part of our success as I have been.”

At South Gate High, the girls got into the swing of things by reaching the city’s Division 3-A tennis finals before losing to Gardena, 5-2. South Gate finished the season with a 17-1 record and won the Eastern League with a 10-0 record. Both marks were the best for a South Gate girls’ tennis team since the school opened in 1932.

Aida Orejel, a ninth-grader who had a 17-2 record for the season, was South Gate’s top singles player. She lost to Karen Manson from Palisades in the individual quarterfinals, 6-2, 6-2.