2008 Woodie Awards
Small team this season due to eligibility
Charles Thomas
Issue date: 9/9/05 Section: Sports
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Team Captain, Javier Joseph Hernandez, 20 in his second year at Delta, has an outlook to make playoffs. He is confident that it can be accomplished but, feels that the soccer team needs to come together and work as a team. Last year the team didn't do too well he said. He thinks that the team would have had a better chance if he had got a chance to play but he was one unit short last year. You have to have 12 units per semester and a 2.0 GPA. This year he has enough units and plays center defense. He is a graduate of Stagg High School.
Hernandez knows of two players who didn't come back this year, center mid-fielder and striker, because of eligibility. He knows first-hand that if you don't take enough classes you wont be allowed to play sports. He also knows of how it's tough to lead.
"It's rough for the fact that I can get flustered and it's hard to keep positive," he said.
Nelly Rodriguez also noted how the team as a more positive spin of things this year.
"We don't have all the people with attitudes," said Rodriguez. "We should make it to the playoffs."
Tom Hoang, coach of the Delta soccer team, said at the beginning of the year he had a good outlook. He felt there was a lot of potential this season. But many players had to quit because they had a busy schedule, had to work, and couldn't show up for the game. Another problem was that he is not full-time coach since he is a full time teacher for Stockton Unified School District and because of this he has trouble recruiting. He would like to recruit more because he thinks Delta has a lot of potential kids all over the world, such as Mexico, Asia, and Portugal. The quality of the workers are good, but they have a lot of work to do. He had only 12 players eligible, Saturday, Aug. 27 and the other team had about 25 to 30 players. They lost to Feather River 5-0.
He thinks the team will improve because they have a lot of determination and he believes some players still have to find their niche. He lost six key players from last year due to in-eligibility, or not enough units or they had to work.
The team has good leadership and they are positive. He needs three good offensive players he thinks they need to learn to work together and they are inexperienced. He doesn't know how the new players will perform, if they will quit, or keep going when things get hard. His team plays well under pressure.