Fast, furious and improbable

With six girls who never played organized soccer before, Coach Robert Prado remembers the early practices for his AYSO Region 120 girls’ under-10 team, The Fast and the Furious.

“I could seriously say they were like the Bad News Bears in the beginning,” Prado said, smiling. “Some of them couldn’t even run in a straight line.”

From those humble beginnings, the Costa-Mesa based team has had quite a run. The Fast and the Furious squad heads to the AYSO Section 11 championships on Saturday and Sunday in Downey, where they’ll compete against teams from Los Angeles all the way down to San Diego.

A tournament title at the sections will send them where Prado said no Region 120 team has ever gone before: the state championships.

“It’s great to see how far they’ve come, and it really has to do with their effort,” said Prado, whose team begins Section 11 play Saturday at 9 a.m. at Downey’s Griffith Middle School. “There’s that old saying that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink. Yeah, I gave them the tools, but they did it themselves. I was just lucky to get girls who have that never-quit attitude.”

It was a long road there. After surviving a penalty-kick game in the Region 120 finals, the team lost its first pool-play game at the Area Q tournament to a team from South Irvine.

Then, The Fast and the Furious had two more penalty-kick shootouts in the Area Q semifinals and finals on Dec. 20.

Area Q also consists of teams from Region 57 (Corona del Mar) and Region 97 (Newport Beach), along with squads from Tustin, Irvine, Yorba Linda and Placentia.

The Fast and the Furious won the Area Q championship, 1-0, over North Tustin on Mackenzie Hyde’s penalty-kick goal.

“I knew I could do it,” said Hyde, 9, who attends Kaiser Elementary. “I’m kind of good at kicking with no defense, and that’s what that is. Coach said I have a really strong leg.

“I think we’ve been such a good team because we try hard and work together.”

The team has also used great goaltending by Kyra Page, and plenty of goals by Prado’s daughter, Bailey, who was the league’s leading scorer.

But Robert Prado, who was named the Region 120 Coach of the Year, said one of the things that makes the team so special is that someone different always steps up.

“Before we warm up, people probably look at us and go, ‘Oh man, this is going to be easy,’” he said. “But this team, they just step it up. It’s a team game, and that’s the way they play, as a team. They never quit on each other.”

His daughter, along with teammate Emily Rodriguez, have had twice as many practices lately. The two players are also on the region all-star team.

But they don’t seem to mind. Bailey Prado said one of her favorite drills is “Shark tank,” where teammates are dribbling the ball inside a circle and two “sharks” try to knock it outside the circle.

“I think that we’ve really improved,” said Prado, 9, who attends Holy Family Cathedral School in Orange. “Some people, this is their first year, and they’ve scored a lot of goals.”

Rodriguez, who plays defense, made a penalty-kick goal in the earlier rounds of the playoffs.

“I was thinking that I could make a goal in the penalty kicks, so my mom could be proud of me,” said Rodriguez, 9, who attends St. Joachim School. “We have a good defense, and we pass a lot. We do a lot of jokes, and we talk before we play the games.”

Robert Prado also provides inspiration with his “hustle bag.”

“Every week, I’ll go to the 99 Cent store and I’ll buy a bunch of toys and pens, and cool little things for school,” he said. “Every time they give effort — it doesn’t matter if they win or not — they all get to pick out of the hustle bag. It just adds a little reward to their efforts.”

He added that his players, despite their young age, know what’s at stake in the Section 11 playoffs.

“I told them to live it up, and take in as much as they can,” Prado said. “Not everyone sees a championship. I explained to them about professionals, how they can go their whole careers being the best and never see a championship. After they’ve realized how special this is, they’ve really taken it in. I can see it in their eyes.”

Bailey Prado said she’s not nervous, giving props to Page.

“Sort of, but not really,” she said, “because we have the best goalie ever.”

Hyde said as long as the team can get pumped up, things will be fine.

“Coach really gets us hyped up at the beginning of the game,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons we do good. We’re really good at that.”

Also contributing for The Fast and the Furious are Taylor Boer, Katherine Desmond, Samantha Ferreyra, Gabriela Hernandez, Romalie Ortiz, Angelica Quiroz, Olivia Richardson and Alexis Villicana.