Oaks Christian girls beat Oak Park to advance
Lions are seeking their second straight soccer championship
By Wayne Harrison
wharrison@theacorn.com

MICHAEL COONS/T.O. Acorn GIRL POWER-Top, Oaks Christian girl's soccer team players celebrate their 1-0 win over Oak Park in the CIF quarterfinals last week. Below, Brianna Cox heads the ball while Oak Park's Roxana Sadeghi defends. With the victory, the Lions advanced to the CIF-Southern Section semifinals.

The Oaks Christian girls’ soccer team utilized a late goal by Alena Avedessian to defeat Oak Park, 1-0, last Friday in a California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Southern Section Division V quarterfinals match up.

The Lions traveled to Marymount for yesterday’s semifinals.

Oaks Christian and Oak Park shared the championship last year when they tied 1-1 in the CIF championship game. When they faced each other again this year the Lions defeated the Eagles in a game in which they out-shot Oak Park 22-8.

"The score, in my opinion, was not indicative of how the game went," said Lions’ head coach Jan Hethcock, who praised Oak Park coach Ted Eggleston. "Ted has done a great job with those kids. I respect Ted a lot. They lost about seven kids (to graduation). They have a solid program.

"But we hit the cross-bar three times," Hethcock added. "And their goalie made two phenomenal saves. We played very, very solid."

Hethcock said his Lions and Oak Park play different styles.

"Our game is more of a possession, passing, skilled game," Hethcock said. "Oak Park likes to play the long ball. They like to boom it down the middle and get it to their two speedsters at the top.’

But the Lions defense has excelled during the playoffs (no goals given up) and during the entire season (18 shutouts). Oaks Christian had scored 13 playoff goals going into the semis against Marymount.

The Lions’ defense includes junior sweeper Jessica Needham, senior left fullback Meaghan Richardson, junior right fullback Allie Davis, and senior stopper Tiffany Day.

"Those four are just solid, solid players," Hethcock said of his starting defenders.

And as a team, Hethcock said the Lions are peaking at the right time.

"The girls have come together the last two weeks," he said. "The Oak Park game was big for them. To them it was kind of like the mini-championship. Who is better? This year we happened to have come out ahead."

Despite all the emotion wrapped up in the Oak Park game, Hethcock didn’t think his team would have a letdown against Marymount.

"No, I’m not worried about having a letdown," he said. "These kids want to get back to the finals and they want to make sure that people know it (last year’s co-title) wasn’t a fluke."

The Lions coach said this is a better team than last year’s.

"This is, in my opinion, a better team than we had last year," said Hethcock. "And I think they’ve played better this year."

The Lions players have stated all season that they want to get back to the championship game and win the title outright.

"They’re very motivated and a very tight-knit team," said Hethcock, who pointed out that his team has been following one lesson per day from UCLA Coach John Wooden’s book "One on One."

"We’re on lesson 48 today," Hethcock said. "I started reading these with the girls and they’re totally in tuned to them because Coach Wooden is pretty current. And we attach it with a verse. We’re a Christian school so we have the freedom to do that.

   "…We relate that to what’s going on in our lives," Hethcock added. "We have feedback. We talk about it, and then we spend some time in prayer. And then we go to practice."

   That prayer is one difference between Oaks Christian and public schools, said Hethcock.

"That’s what makes our school unique from a public school," he said. "We have the freedom to do this, so these kids can ask these questions. And I have various faiths on my team. I’ve got Jewish kids on my team. I’ve got Catholic kids. I’ve got Protestant kids.

"And I’ve got non-believers, kids that have not grown up in a Christian environment at home, but their parents want them at our school for the moral values and things like that. So I’ve got a cross-section."

Hethcock said his team has gelled into a cohesive unit.

"It doesn’t matter what denomination you are," he said. "We’re all going to build this together from one common goal. No. 1, we’re playing to honor the Lord. No. 2, we’re playing to honor each other. And No. 3, we’re playing for our school."

Hethcock added, "The focus is to let people know that we’re a Christian school by our actions, not by just name only."

The Lions were originally set to face Marymount Tuesday but the game was postponed one day so that four Oaks Christian players could attend the funeral of three friends from Camarillo who died in a car crash last week.

The Lions were 18-2-5 heading into the semis vs. Marymount.