Nicknames don’t usually get this good. Blessed with the unique
ability to hunt down balls that would be unreachable for most
players, Gilroy’s Ariana Vera, known simply as
”
Cheetah
”
to her coaches and teammates, is the kind of athlete whose
limits are predominantly self-imposed, and have nothing to do with
speed.
Gilroy
Nicknames don’t usually get this good.
Blessed with the unique ability to hunt down balls that would be unreachable for most players, Gilroy’s Ariana Vera, known simply as “Cheetah” to her coaches and teammates, is the kind of athlete whose limits are predominantly self-imposed, and have nothing to do with speed.
Jose Hernandez, coach of the Gilroy High girls soccer team, is willing to admit as much when he compares Vera to team leaders of years’ past such as Amanda Bruce and Kristi Figueroa.
“Ariana has what Kristi and Amanda didn’t have, which is God-given speed,” he said.
The kind of speed that makes coaches who haven’t done their homework go back to the drawing board at halftime.
“Every team we’ve played – and you know if they haven’t played us – if they left her alone with no mark in the first half that changed very, very quickly,” Hernandez said.
Helping Gilroy earn its second straight Tri-County Athletic League crown last season with 10 goals and five assists in 20 games, which was good enough to end up sharing the league’s Most Valuable Player award with fellow Mustang and recent graduate Kristi Figueroa, Vera is a target to those who do know her game.
With extra attention from defenders can come increased aggravation, but far less so than in the past for Vera. Now a senior, she is doing a better job of keeping her head when she is held, kicked and otherwise roughed-up.
“I remember last year, I used to always get heated up,” she said. “When they pushed me around, I would get mad really fast. It’s been hard, but you just have to learn to keep control because there’s nothing you can do about it if you get kicked out of the game.”
The result from having a cooler, calmer Cheetah on the field has been absolute domination in this season’s first seven games. Vera has netted five goals to go with one assist in leading the Mustangs to a 4-1-2 record.
“This year the most productive thing is seeing her grow mentally,” Hernandez said. “She’s finding ways to deal with frustrations, finding ways to deal with her emotions, that won’t make her shut down.”
Instead, she’s been lifting her teammates up as well. Gilroy has outscored its opponents 17-4, partly because Vera receives almost an excessive amount of attention. Hernandez predicts it’s only going to get worse.
“Every team in our league will have two or three players on her this season,” he said.
Getting a read on Vera has been hard for area coaches to do for one main reason, though. One of the best players in the entire Central Coast Section only plays competitively a few months out of each year.
Lacking the ability to join a club team because of the costly travel demands, Vera only plays with GHS during the winter. Raised by a single mother along with her three brothers, who also are all excellent soccer players as well, Vera’s ability is homegrown.
“I was like a tomboy and I would do every sport [my brothers] would,” she said. “I just liked soccer so I just stuck with it. It kind of helped me because they taught me to not be weak and just go for it.”
Vera hopes to one day play at the top level of collegiate soccer, while her immediate plans after high school are to attend Modesto Junior College. Going from a pure sprinter as freshman to a refined scorer as a senior, Hernandez and Vera both believe her ceiling still isn’t within sight.
“I think I could play much better,” she said. “I think I could be way better if I practice my ball control and work on my touch.”
Hernandez notes one practice in which Vera decided to only shoot with her left foot to work on a weakness. The result was her teammates joined in.
“She leads by example,” he said. “She doesn’t realize how much influence she has on this team.”
The coach is hoping she can soon lead the Mustangs to a third straight league title while also becoming contenders for a CCS championship.
“If Ariana is mentally focused for the game, she’s going in hard, doing the little things, then we’ll be fine,” he said.
“You just take that one (wrong) step and she can win the game for you.”
