Top-notch field. Top-notch coach. Top-notch talent.
When it comes to field hockey, Los Gatos High has it all,
including seven straight appearances in the CCS championship game
and six section titles in the last 11 years.
Top-notch field. Top-notch coach. Top-notch talent.
When it comes to field hockey, Los Gatos High has it all, including seven straight appearances in the CCS championship game and six section titles in the last 11 years.
It’s a program both feared and revered around the area.
“There’s been teams in the past that could’ve beaten them,” Gilroy senior Jenelle Perez said, “but the name has scared them away.”
Now it’s the Mustangs turn to tackle the beast. After receiving a first-round bye in the CCS tournament, fifth-seeded GHS (14-3-2) travels to No. 2 Los Gatos Saturday for an 11:45 match against the perenially powerhouse.
“We know the odds are against us,” senior Danielle Roberts said, “but nothing is impossible.”
Like so many others before them, the Mustangs have to overcome the inferiority complex that comes with playing the Wildcats.
“I think it’s more mental now, because we already have the physical stuff down,” senior Andrea Chichester said. “Los Gatos tends to psyche us out, though.”
There was a time, Gilroy co-head coach Erin Gemar said, when an “A” league team like the Wildcats “just wouldn’t play a ‘B’ team like us.”
Not anymore. As the program has grown up the last few years, the Mustangs have earned regular invitations to play Los Gatos, including earlier this season when the ‘Cats beat Gilroy, 5-1, in a scrimmage.
But still …
“To go from where they weren’t even considering playing you to be invited to scrimmages, that’s some progress,” said Gemar, in her sixth season coaching with husband Adam. “But I think the girls still feel like they’re guests when they go there – like they’re doing us a favor.”
Gilroy’s seven seniors know all about the mental barriers that need to be overcome. But they also know they could be facing their final high school game ever – and that’s quite the motivator.
“I know Los Gatos has psyched out everybody before, but were just as good as them I think,” senior Elena Ramirez said. “I honestly think we can take them. It’s really important – all the seniors want it bad. We all want it.”
They want at least one CCS victory before they graduate. The 2003 Mustangs won the Mission Trail Athletic League – like the 2004 edition did this season – but bowed out in their first game at St. Francis. Perez said she’s remembers the feeling all too well.
“It was a big disappointment at the end, after all that hard work,” she said. “We don’t want it to be like that again.”
Los Gatos does present plenty of challenges, though.
“They have a lot of skills,” Gemar said. “They’re touch is nice, stops are great, hits are right on.”
The strategy of the Wildcats (13-4-1) often revolves around their stifling defensive pressure, in which they almost always have three players around whichever opposing player has possession.
Los Gatos also specializes in short corners, four of which it converted into goals during its earlier meeting with Gilroy.
“They killed us on short corners,” Ramirez recalled.
But persistent conditioning and non-stop practice – the team has had only two non-Sundays off since August – has made the Mustangs “way better,” she said.
“We know what to expect now.”
Is a victory over Los Gatos – once an unthinkable proposition – part of those expectations?
“As coaches,” Gemar said, “we think this is our time.”
