After scoring his team’s only goal in the Santa Maria All Stars vs. Chivas USA exhibition game, Andy Contreras has been receiving a lot of attention. For a kid who hopes to play professional soccer someday, that’s a good thing.
“He got a lot of compliments from the Chivas’ head coach,” said coach Al Garcia.
Garcia was the man in charge of the Santa Maria squad at the second annual exhibition game between the two teams that benefits the Boy Scouts of America. He said Contreras was one of the stars of the game.
“I think we had a better game than they did,” Contreras said of the Chivas team. “We handled the ball most of the time and we attacked more.”
Unfortunately, Contreras said, the Chivas’ goalie was almost impossible to score on—though Contreras did manage to get in that one goal in the 1-2 game.
“I wanted to get even more in,” he said, “but they had a tremendous goalkeeper.”
Speaking of tremendous, that’s exactly how Garcia describes how Contreras’ skills will translate on the field for Santa Maria High School next season.
“He’ll be a tremendous asset,” Garcia said.
The Santa Maria senior is expected to be a starting forward on the Saints 2008-09 squad, a team that Garcia said may be the best to ever play for the school.
“If we lose one game this year I’ll be surprised,” Garcia said. “We’ll be outstanding.”
This article appears in Jul 31 – Aug 7, 2008.