BY GREG LUCA | STAFF WRITER
MISSION — Having played left wing for most of her life, Sharyland Pioneer girls soccer freshman Andrea Reyes wasn’t sure how she’d transition to forward.
She called it a “huge change.” After years of being the one who was making the passes, now she was going to be finishing plays.
At the same time, Reyes was jumping from middle school to varsity, and trying to mesh with the rest of a first-year team.
But Reyes quickly found comfort in the support of her older teammates, which allowed her natural talent to shine through. She finished District 31-5A play as the team’s leader with 11 goals and is a big reason why Pioneer has advanced to a Class 5A regional semifinal matchup against Austin Vandegrift at 6:30 tonight in Corpus Christi.
“I’ve always struggled a little bit with the self confidence of shooting,” Reyes said. “When that transition was happening, I wasn’t as confident. Now, I think I’ve been a lot more confident shooting the ball.”
Reyes said she was “very surprised” she’s been able to score as often as she has. She was expecting to run into the usual stereotype: A freshman on varsity gets pushed to the back of the line by the older players. She quickly found that’s not the way things worked at Pioneer. Instead, there was “no drama.”
The four juniors who brought their varsity experience from Sharyland High — Julie Alanis, Taylor Marquez, Hannah Padilla and Maggi Palacios — made Reyes feel welcomed from the start. That group was also quick to mold the team to a winning mentality after having success as Rattlers. With only one senior on the roster, those four took on a leadership role from the start.
“They told me not to be afraid of shooting, or taking any chances,” Reyes said. “They were very supportive of me. They trusted me to do my job, and that helped me a lot.”
For the entire roster, chemistry came almost instantly. Reyes said she was familiar with the other six freshman after playing with them in middle school. That group was linked to the current junior class by Kate Padilla, Hannah’s sister. The two classes had gotten to know each other away from the field long before starting at Pioneer. They made a point of growing closer last summer, realizing how important that connection would be.
“We would hang out after school, not just in soccer, and just connect with them,” said Alanis, who also has a relative on the team in her cousin Pricilla. “We have a lot of team chemistry. We all love each other very much, we love the game, and we just love coming to practice.”
Knowing each other, the next step was for the new players to get to know coach J.J. Lopez, who was coming over from Sharyland High after 17 seasons. From the beginning, Lopez said he established that Pioneer would never use being a first-year school as a crutch. The program started with just 19 girls, but he and his assistants finish the year with a 24-player varsity roster and a pair of junior varsity teams.
Still, he said the team learning his system and expectations remains an ongoing process. Julie saw that some of the younger players were “kind of scared” at first, but she and the other returners told them not to worry.
“I’m not very used to his structure, but the older players, the juniors, they helped me and the other freshmen get used to his teaching and how he runs things,” Reyes said.
With older players guiding the freshmen through every step of the process, Reyes is not surprised by Pioneer’s immediate success. Unlike with her scoring, she was confident in the team’s ability to win from Day 1.
“I did expect us to have this good of a season, actually,” Reyes said. “I feel like people have doubted us a little bit because of our age, but I knew, because I’ve been friends with most of them for a really long time, that everything would just fall into place.”