For Love of the game

From sunsentinel.com

Boynton went 45 games before winning: 'We were so happy'

With one victory in the past three years, it would be easy for members of the Boynton Beach girls' soccer team to find ways to quit.

Second-year coach Katherine Sarria said it's just the opposite, despite the 1-51-3 record in that span.

"You can't think about it, you just have to go out and have fun," said sophomore midfielder Lorena Lopez, the lone travel player on the squad. "We do want to win, so we just keep playing harder. Even when we are losing 4-0, I tell them to just think of the game as if it is 0-0."

Sarria hopes to continue to build the program, which she says pays the price since there is no youth soccer feeder program. Most of the team is first- and second year players. Boynton Beach has a 14-member junior varsity team for the first time.

"It does take a little motivation on my part to get them going and playing day to day — wanting and striving to get another victory," Sarria said.

"We talk and I let them know that they are not a bad team at all," she said. "They have skills and they have to keep coming out and try to play hard and not give up before the game even starts."

The Tigers (1-18-0) won their first game in three years on Dec. 4 with a 1-0 victory over District 15-4A rival Hallandale. The win snapped a 45-game winless streak.

"We were so happy," said Lopez, recalling the team celebrated with a pizza party. "It was our first win. We were excited and we sang on the bus all the way home. The next day at school everybody at school was like, 'Wow, you guys won!'"

The Tigers were 0-19-3 last year and 0-14 in the 2006-07 season. The team has been outscored 124-6 this season and 10 of its 19 games have been stopped because of the eight-goal mercy rule.

Pope John Paul II High coach Bill D'Addio said he was impressed with Boynton Beach's tenacity. His team defeated the Tigers 11-0 last week.

"Boynton plays with more heart than many of the teams we face," D'Addio said. "They give it everything they have right up to the final whistle. My hat goes off to their players and coaching staff.

"It's refreshing to watch a group of girls that haven't had much success always play as though they are in a playoff game."

Second-year player Estefani Perez recently scored her first career goal in a 2-1 loss to Forest Hill on Jan. 7. Her younger sister, Joselyn, a sophomore, is also on the squad.

"I think we improved a lot this year from last year," said Estefani Perez, a junior. "Scoring my first goal was indescribable. It was unbelievable. I felt so happy."

Joselyn Perez said defeating Hallandale was "great" because they had never won a game before.

"It was a blessing," Joselyn said. "It was a miracle. I was shocked. We try to talk through it and it is frustrating, I am not going to lie, because we lose almost all of our games. I think as we keep playing together we get more connected, and I think we will look back and see how we improved."

The girls' can relate to the boys' team, which hasn't fared much better going 3-39-3 during the past three years. The Miami Dolphins went from 1-15 to 11-5 and made the playoffs this season. It is something that isn't lost on Lopez.

"If the girls get better over the summer, or we get some better players," Lopez said, "we could win more games, and that would be amazing."