Soccer season to kick off with alumni games at Coast Union
Just days after Thanksgiving, Saturday, Nov. 26, local soccer fans will be treated to a feast for the sporting senses as Coast Union’s girls (starting at 5 p.m.) and boys (starting at 7 p.m.) teams face off against alumni squads — the annual kickoff to the high school soccer season.
On Friday, Nov. 11, there was no school due to Veterans Day, but the Bronco boys held practice in the afternoon, led by Luis Plasencia, a veteran of 20 years of coaching soccer at Coast Union and elsewhere.
The past four years Plasencia, who owns a landscape company, has coached the boys — after several years coaching the girls at Coast.
Plasencia, who has 18 student athletes on his team — he had 22 players in 2015 — said he would like to have at least 20 on the squad, but he added it’s not up to him to recruit additional players.
“The only way is if they decide to play or not,” and come to the team on their own, he explained.
“We have a lot of talented kids,” he explained, but as of now he is not sure which of his 18 players will eventually be named captain. Dante Garcia, who died tragically in a swimming accident this year, had been expected to captain Plasencia’s team based on the quality of his play last year.
“I don’t think we will have a replacement for Dante,” the coach said, “because I don’t know if we’ll have a kid who can play at the same level as Dante.”
The coach’s strategies for team practices follow the same guidelines that he has learned through the years. After stretching, the players engaged in a passing and ball-control exercise, and shortly Plasencia was on the field participating with his team.
This was also a conditioning exercise as the players run each out to one of several positions on the field. Immediately when a player reaches a position, a ball is kicked to him and he boots it back, practicing proper footwork, before running to the next position to repeat the action.
“They are running all the time,” the coach explained before taking off his hat and joining them.
Many players grew up in Cambria and San Simeon playing pickup games, organized by Cambria Youth Athletic Association soccer, or club soccer with teams from Atascadero and elsewhere.
Following the passing and ball-control exercise, the players practiced goal-scoring (and players that may be assigned to be goalkeepers handled multiple kicks), and finally, what “they really like doing,” as Plasencia explained, they engaged in a competitive scrimmage.
On this Friday afternoon, it was obvious that these student athletes love the game, and thoroughly enjoy the workouts that Plasencia supervises. Laughter, joking, and a powerful sense of camaraderie highlighted the afternoon.
The coach’s goal is to try and bring out the talents of each athlete, so everyone has the ability to come in as a substitute and competently carry out the duties and strategies of the player that he has gone in to replace.
After the alumni event Nov. 26, both the boys and girls entertain Templeton for their first match of the regular season, according to MaxPreps.
This story was originally published November 16, 2016 at 9:25 AM with the headline "Soccer season to kick off with alumni games at Coast Union."