The Culver City girls’ soccer team kicked off the 2014-15 season with a hard fought 1-0 victory against Notre Dame Academy Monday at the Jerry Chabola Field on the Culver City campus. Their next home game will be Friday at 5 p.m. against Lynwood.
When the Centaurs were warming up for the game on Monday Coach Scott Mair had some concerns.
“I told the girls that I did not like the way they were communicating and passing the ball,” Mair said. “When the game started they put everything together and played a good game. I think this team we surprise a lot of people.”
The last few years the Centaurs have enjoyed a lot of success. They won the Ocean League in 2012-13 and finished a close second to Santa Monica last year. This year league play will be more challenging with the addition of El Segundo and Lawndale.
This season the Centaurs will look for senior leadership to help them navigate through a tough schedule.
“We have two senior captains that are the leaders of this team,” Mair said. “Tatianna Estrada and Isabel Deharo are very vocal and they really help relay the message to the players.”
Estrada seems to be ready for the challenge.
“We graduated twelve seniors from last year’s team so this is a fresh new team,” said Estrada after the win over Notre Dame Academy. “It’s a whole new environment. It was nice to see all the girls working together today.”
Another senior, Isabella Avincola, scored the only goal of the game.
“It felt really good to score that goal for our team,” Avincola said. “We have a lot of new girls but we all click together when the game starts. We have good chemistry and we have a quick forward line and a quick defense.”
One of the quickest players on the team is sophomore midfielder Amanda Jaramillo. On Monday she was one of the best players on the field.
“I thought we played a good game,” said Jaramillo. “We did a lot of passing and a lot of combination plays. I expect good things from this team. We have a good set of girls.” Goalkeeper junior Emily Cadena was another Centaur that stepped up to help the team get its first win.
“Our defenders were fantastic and they were always on the move, especially Megan (Gerez) and Tatianna,” said Cadena. “Our team has a lot of speed and they always have my back.”