By Natalie Edwards
Special to the Daily Press

SAMOHI The moment head coach Frank Gatell knew this year’s Santa Monica High School varsity boys soccer team would be different came before the season had even started.

Just 15 minutes into a practice game against Mayfair High School in Lakewood, the team was down 3-0 and two starting players were already on the sideline suffering from injuries. The game, and the year, wasn’t looking promising, but then just before halftime, Samohi scored a goal and everything turned around.

“We came back and won it 4-3,” Gatell said. “In all my years of coaching, we never came back from 3-0. From 2-0, yes, but never from 3-0. Most teams that give up three goals don’t win, so to see these guys persevere was a great sign of this team’s strength.”

The might of the team hasn’t abated since that early game. This season has been the best in Samohi soccer history, with the team racking up a record of 17-0-1.

“The boys are technically undefeated,” Gatell said.

Now ranked second in the Southland by the L.A. Times and first by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America, the team’s success, said Gatell, has been several years in the making. Eleven years ago, when Gatell became head coach of the high school’s program, most of the players didn’t have the benefit of playing club soccer in the off-season. Now, close to 85 percent play year round. That has increased the skill level of the entire pool of players.

This year’s team benefits from a concentration of seniors with a couple years experience playing competitively. Last season, after the team lost in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) championship quarter-finals, Gatell remembers realizing that many of the juniors on the team could take advantage of that defeat.

“We really learned from last year,” Gatell said. “I remember looking to all those other players and knowing the majority would be coming back. These were juniors getting very good competitive experience. I looked at them and said, ‘Learn from this. Next year, you could be the champions.’”

The prospect seems like a real possibility as the season continues. The team shows no lack of enthusiasm, partly due to team camaraderie garnered from that shared experience and others growing up together.

“We’ve known each other for years, since we were little. The team chemistry is amazing,” said co-captain Nick Ferro, a senior.

“The senior class is like a brotherhood,” added co-captain Artur Jozkowick, also a senior.

To combat the onset of exhaustion that tends to accompany a full schedule of classes and training over the course of a season, regardless of the experience and enthusiasm of the players, Gatell enlisted the volunteer aid of Santa Monica physical therapist Robert Forster.

“That’s huge,” Gatell said. “He does this free of charge, working with our kids.”

Gatell knew Forster was the secret behind the Samohi wrestling team’s win at the CIF championship last year. The wrestling team hadn’t won a championship in decades. Gatell met Forster his own senior year at Samohi when he blew his knee out playing soccer. His most salient memories recuperating under the watchful eye of Forster are of the Olympic athletes that peppered his office.

“They’re there because [Forster] knows what he is doing,” said Gatell.

Instead of focusing on cardio-vascular training in the pre-season, Forster persuaded the team to spend more time weight training. The aim was to build the muscles involved in the most common movements in soccer, like kicking a ball. The players ended up spending more time than previously in the weight room learning how to use stretch bands effectively.

Gatell’s other main strategy has been to set small, precise goals for the team. As a result, each player is certain to be able to juggle a soccer ball 50 times with his feet and kick a ball 40 yards smoothly into the net.

“Setting these exact, specific goals for our team, we’re seeing the payment,” Gatell said.

The team, for all its success, has only one complaint.

“The bleachers aren’t full yet,” Jozkowick said. “We have the school behind us, but we want the city, too.”

With only a handful of games left before the season ends in early February, the team is approaching the start of the CIF playoffs in mid February and, should the winning streak continue, finals in early March. The quarterfinals of the CIF tournament will be the ultimate testing ground for the team and its current strategies.

Scoring leader Alex Kovacs said the team isn’t thinking that far ahead.

“We’re just taking it one at a time,” Kovacs said, “each game, one at a time.”

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