Adam Gemar doesn’t think this year’s varsity field hockey team
is necessarily the best Gilroy High has ever put on the field, but
he also doesn’t think there’s a team in the Central Coast Section
capable of running his squad off the field.
Adam Gemar doesn’t think this year’s varsity field hockey team is necessarily the best Gilroy High has ever put on the field, but he also doesn’t think there’s a team in the Central Coast Section capable of running his squad off the field.
“We can fill all 11 positions and the depth is there,” Gemar said. “It’s not our largest team (ever) as far as height, but skill-wise we’re covered really well.”
Add in good team chemistry and Gemar thinks his squad will do quite well at Los Gatos in its first game of the season, beginning at 3:30 p.m. today.
“Los Gatos is always good, it seems like they’ve been consistently good for years and years,” he said. “For us it’s kind of how the whole season is going to go. …To play them in the beginning is kind of a marker on how we should do this season (compared) to the (best) San Jose teams.”
With several Mustangs competing at prestigious events over the summer – Dani Hemeon went to the Junior Olympics and Elise Ogle and Jennifer Rose both competed at elite college camps around the Bay Area – and a greater emphasis being placed on offseason workouts, the talent level should be exceptionally high. Winning the Mission Trail Athletic League is pretty much a foregone conclusion at this point after going undefeated in three straight seasons of league play. What Gemar and a revamped coaching staff are counting on is the extra workouts (the team met three times a day, three times a week this summer on top of double days in between) and a greater focus on playing defense to pay off in the CCS playoffs.
“This year, I’m figuring since we have offense intact, that it’s kind of time to focus a lot more on the defensive scheme of things,” Gemar said. “We gotta step it up a lot more.”
Gilroy, which played Live Oak in a scrimmage Thursday evening, will be going to an undisclosed location after Friday’s game for a retreat designed to strengthen team unity. Not that such an event is desperately needed.
“We have a strong solid core that’s equal to the last three years and chemistry plays a big part of it,” Gemar said.
