The schedule says the Gilroy High girls’ field hockey team
starts its season Sept. 3.
The team’s players and coaches say it started long ago.
The schedule says the Gilroy High girls’ field hockey team starts its season Sept. 3.
The team’s players and coaches say it started long ago.
With a majority of the Mustangs competing on the same summer team – and with a few even traveling to camps on both coasts of the country – it’s hard to argue with the latter point.
“It’s been a productive summer,” said co-head coach Adam Gemal, who enters his sixth season with wife Erin. “I think in past years, we weren’t as fit during the season as maybe we should’ve been.
“That’s not true anymore.”
It’s not true, he said, because two-thirds of the players from his summer team, Infinity, will play for the Mustangs this fall.
“It’s pretty much the first year we’ve had a real club,” Adam Gemal said.
In addition to getting in four practices and two workouts a week, the team also competed in a few tournaments, including the prestigous Cal Cup over Memorial Day weekend.
“I think it’s helped us a lot,” said junior Karlie Sandoval, last year’s Team MVP. “Field hockey is all about getting experience and just learning.”
Recently there’s been plenty of both for a busy Sandoval, who played for a regional team out of San Diego this summer. The first GHS soccer player to ever compete on such a team, Sandoval was one of 15 girls picked from a group of 100.
Along with senior forward Elana Ramirez and sophomore goaltender Stephanie Glenn, she also got plenty more experience while taking part in a field hockey camp.
While Ramirez stayed closer to home at Stanford University, Sandoval and Glenn traveled to Babson College in Boston, becoming the first Gemal-coached players to travel to a camp outside California.
“It can only help their confidence,” Erin Gemar said.
Gilroy graduated 10 seniors from the 2003 team that won the Tri-County Athletic League and rolled to a 15-2-1 record before losing to St. Francis in the first round of the CCS playoffs.
Among the graduates were five starters, including longtime goalie Sam Sicard, first-team all-league selection Amanda Cooper and last year’s offensive MVP, Maday Garcia.
“We’re pretty young and inexperienced,” Adam Gemar said.
True, nearly a third of this year’s team has never played a regular-season game before.
Don’t let the numbers fool you, though – the Mustangs have plenty left in their arsenal.
Returnees include all-TCAL first-teamers Sandoval, Ramirez and Meg Perkins, the team’s most valuable midfielder last season. Senior Janelle Perez, Gilroy’s defensive MVP of 2003, is also back.
“We still have it all together,” said Ramirez, a captain for the second straight year. “We should be pretty strong.”
After taking a look at the group that has survived the preseason, which has included several 6am practices, Sandoval seconded her teammate’s optimistic outlook.
“I think we’re going to be really good,” she said. “These tryouts we’re going through are pretty tough, so whoever is still here is tough.
“All these girls want it.”
