BOYS’ SOCCER / TEAMS TO WATCH : Royal, Harvard-Westlake Might Have Strongest Kick

Led by Harvard-Westlake, boys’ soccer will be well-represented among the area’s Southern Section schools. The Wolverines boast a deep and experienced team that should advance far in the Division III playoffs and could well bring home a title. Notre Dame will challenge Harvard-Westlake in the Mission League and both Palmdale and Burroughs will present roadblocks in the section playoffs.

Elsewhere in the Southern Section, Royal will again be a power in Division I while Buena hopes nine new starters can put the Bulldogs in the Division II postseason for the sixth time in seven seasons.

In the City Section, Birmingham looks to rise from last season’s abbreviated and losing season on the feet of Gabriel Ortega, and should hold off Reseda and Kennedy.

BIRMINGHAM

COACH: Jose Freire

RECORD LAST SEASON: 3-4-1

SYNOPSIS: Blessed with a distinct home-field advantage and several strong upperclassmen, the Braves should be among the city’s better teams this year.

While most of the section’s teams labor in the cramped boundaries and dust of football fields, Birmingham is lucky enough to play on an Olympic-sized pitch (75 feet wide, 120 feet long) covered with grass.

“Not having to share our field with anybody, we may have developed a little faster than the other teams,” said Freire, whose squad is 2-0 this season.

“Other teams tend to get tired when they play us there, but also, when we play on a short field we get crowded.”

Freire has a crew that could operate out of a shoebox if necessary. Ortega, a junior and first-team North Valley League selection, leads the team from the midfield. He is also designated as the Braves’ shooter on penalty kicks, having made four already this season and eight in the last two.

Midfielders, seniors and second team all-league selections Edwin Espranza and Jaime Tinajero will help Ortega control games, while sophomore stopper Joshua Smith has shown promise at keeping the ball in front of diminutive goaltender Edgar Delgado.

BURROUGHS

COACH: Mike Kodama

RECORD LAST SEASON: 15-7-3

SYNOPSIS: Kodama is upbeat despite returning only six varsity players from last year’s team that won a third consecutive Foothill League championship and advanced to the Division III Southern Section final.

“We should be able to handle the ball very well but we’re young and small, so we’ll try to keep the ball on the ground,” said Kodama, who doesn’t see his team winning many battles in the air. “This team has the potential to be as good as the Burroughs teams of recent years.”

Jesus Diaz, a senior midfielder who is the team’s playmaker, is a cousin of Burroughs’ 1993-94 All-American Roberto Perez, now at Cal State Northridge.

Senior goalkeeper David Ramos should be a solid backstop, while senior Gabriel Santana and sophomore Claudio Navarette, both forwards, move up from the junior varsity.

BUENA

COACH: Sean Roche

RECORD LAST SEASON: 15-6-3

SYNOPSIS: Steady defense leads to steady play for the Bulldogs, who have made the Southern Section playoffs five of the past six years.

Last year’s team wound up second in the Channel League and advanced to the second round of the playoffs before bowing to Mater Dei. And they did it with consistency from the net out, led by goaltender Mark Thompson, who returns after posting 14 shutouts a year ago.

Thompson may have to come up big early on, for Buena lost nine starters from last year’s team. Senior fullback Shepley Brohammer and junior midfielder Jose Mendosa (two goals, nine assists) will be crucial to the attack, while senior striker Aaron Older (three goals, four assists) must find the net more often to keep the Bulldogs in close games.

Junior Darryl Mundy, fresh from football, will find a spot somewhere in the lineup but Roche is unsure where to pencil in the fast and physical player.

“These guys enjoy playing with each other and they should be able to handle stress better than most teams,” Roche said. “Defensively we’re strong; scoring on other teams could be a problem.”

PALMDALE

COACH: Claudia Cline

RECORD LAST SEASON: 22-2-2

SYNOPSIS: Cline moves up from the Falcons’ junior varsity and inherits a team that advanced to the Division III quarterfinals last season.

Cline, who began her coaching career 12 years ago in area youth programs, will rely on seniors Raul Rossil and Bryce Sewalson in the midfield and a back line of seniors Justice Jones and Bryce Sewalson along with junior Geoff Carlson.

Firepower should come from junior forward Murad Dibbini, whose older brother Mike played for Palmdale last season and led the Golden League in scoring.

“We typically play a defensive style but we’re working on becoming well-rounded and on having everyone get into the game on offense,” Cline said. “We strive to keep the game’s pace fast.”

KENNEDY

COACH: Fred Singer

RECORD LAST SEASON: 16-4-2

SYNOPSIS: A traditionally strong program, the Golden Cougars may struggle to make the playoffs this season as ineligibility and injury slow them down.

Kennedy won the Northwest Valley Conference championship last season and advanced to the City semifinals but suffered heavy losses to graduation on the back line, and will need younger players to step in immediately.

Junior midfielder/forward Adam Rofer scored nine goals last season and will be counted on heavily, along with defensive standout Robbie Shapiro, a senior sweeper. Senior goaltender Shawn Beattie will start for the third consecutive year after allowing only 1.1 goals a game last season.

HARVARD-WESTLAKE

COACH: Rick Commons

RECORD LAST SEASON: 20-1-4

SYNOPSIS: Harvard-Westlake roared through last season’s lengthy schedule without a hitch, reaching the semifinals of the Division III Southern Section playoffs before being dumped by Bell Gardens. The Wolverines allowed only 12 goals all season and return seven starters, bad news for other local teams.

“We have a lot of talent coming back and we’re probably the favorite (in the Mission League), but we had some very close games last year,” said Commons, who has 11 seniors among his 16 players. “It’s possible we could go a very long way, even all the way, in the playoffs. It’s also possible that we could get knocked off by two or three teams in our league before we ever get there.”

Senior captain and midfielder Warren Davidoff was the Mission League’s offensive player of the year and a first-team All-Southern Section pick, scoring 13 goals. Senior midfielder Brian Angelini added seven scores and senior striker David Tuizer had three goals in the Wolverines’ first three playoff games despite missing much of the season with a severe groin pull.

Senior goaltender Jay Rosen was a second-team All-Southern Section pick, posting 15 shutouts.

SIMI VALLEY

COACH: Ken Dale

RECORD LAST SEASON: 14-5-2

SYNOPSIS: Though rookie coach Dale kept his program’s supporters happy with a win and a tie over archrival Royal last year, he spent much of last season trying to get his team to play at a similar level against other teams.

“For the kids, beating Royal is important and a lot of emphasis was placed on that,” said Dale, who lost six starters from last year’s team. “You want to beat the guys from your neighborhood and some of last year’s seniors had never done that at any level. At the same time I’m disappointed we didn’t have the same focus in other games.”

It wasn’t a bad season all the same. Simi Valley finished second to Royal in the Marmonte League and placed center midfielder Alfonso Ruiz on the All-Southern Section second team. Ruiz is back to captain the Pioneers in his senior season after playing in the California Olympic Development program over the summer. He will team with junior forward/midfielder Sean Herrity, who played in France this summer with the U.S. under-17 national team, and senior midfielder Damon Harris.

“We definitely need to make the playoffs; the tradition established here dictates that,” said Dale, whose team fell to Hawthorne in the first round of last year’s Division I playoffs. “But we lost a lot of defense to graduation so we’ll need to possess the ball as much as possible and take a lot of shots.”

NOTRE DAME

COACH: Colin McFeely

RECORD LAST SEASON: 16-8-1

SYNOPSIS: Football isn’t the only program at Notre Dame that relies on the leg of Chris Sailer. The senior kicker who recently set the state record for field goals in a season will turn his attention to helping the Knights’ soccer team defend its 1994 Mission League title.

Sailer scored 23 goals in as many games for Notre Dame and was the Mission League MVP and an All-Southern Section pick. His continued dominance from the midfield should boost the Knights, but a strong supporting cast won’t hurt either.

McFealy lists senior midfielder Andres Padilla, junior striker Steve Lee and junior Jeff Teague, a positional nomad, as the workhorses for his squad.

Padilla is an emotional leader, while Lee will seek to recapture the consistency of two years ago, when he scored 13 goals as a freshman. Teague is the team’s unsung hero, described by McFeely as being “as consistent as the day is long.”

ROYAL

COACH: Kevin Corley

RECORD LAST SEASON: 21-4-3

SYNOPSIS: The past two seasons have ended in heartbreak for Corley and the Highlanders. After a pair of successful campaigns, the team has bowed out in the first round of the Division I Southern Section playoffs each season, including last year’s defeat to Edison at home in a hailstorm.

“We were ranked No. 1 in Division I most of the year and to go out like that was very disappointing,” said Corley, in his fourth year as coach. “In the past we’ve focused on offense but we have practiced team defense over and over this year because in the playoffs one little mistake can kill you.”

This season holds the promise of further advancement, mostly due to a quartet of returning seniors, all of whom earned All-Marmonte League honors in 1993-94.

Three of the four--Tim Pederson (10 goals, 13 assists), Vince Alves (five goals, six assists) and Chris Fernandez (13 goals, six assists)--are midfielders. Alves was an All-Southern Section selection and Pederson landed on the second team.

The fourth All-League player, 6-3, 220-pound goaltender Ty Russell, posted a 1.2 goals-against average. A standout defensive lineman on the Highlander football team, he will be out at least three weeks after surgery for a hernia that he played with during the final weeks of the football season.

“He’s going to be the best goalkeeper in our league by far,” Corley said. “He’s intimidating in there. Most teams will get one breakaway a game and then that’s it, they don’t want anything to do with him.”