When a freshman is wondering whether to play sports or focus on academics because of the immense time commitment, it\u2019s usually the parents who have to give a nudge toward one or the other. Except this time, the decision was left to 15-year-old Javier Zarate, and he chose to give up club soccer to try for straight A\u2019s last year at Garfield High.<\/p>\n
Last spring, Garfield soccer coach Pablo Serrano, knowing he had a highly regarded goalie on his campus, began a lobbying campaign with emails and text messages inviting him to try out for the Bulldogs\u2019 soccer team.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe told me if I wanted to give it a shot, I could try out,\u201d Zarate said. \u201cThey were very welcoming and nice.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rest is going to be part of Garfield sports lore, because Zarate saved three penalty kicks when Garfield won the City Section Division II championship game against Canoga Park and delivered more saves last week in helping the Bulldogs beat Bakersfield Taft 1-0 in the Southern California Division V regional final.<\/p>\n
Incredibly, Garfield is headed to Sacramento this week to play in the first CIF state soccer championships, against Branford on Saturday at 10 a.m. at Natomas High.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m super pumped up,\u201d Zarate said.<\/p>\n
Who knows how many alumni from Garfield are living in Sacramento or nearby, but they have been known to travel around the country to support their Bulldogs, especially if rival Roosevelt is the opponent. Something tells me there\u2019s going to be a caravan from Boyle Heights headed to Sacramento to provide support.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know some will make the drive,\u201d Serrano said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a strange season in City Section soccer, with six schools removed from the playoffs for using ineligible players, most of whom played for club teams while also playing tor their high school team, in violation of CIF bylaw 600.<\/p>\n
Serrano said there\u2019s always a reminder making sure his players know the rule.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of soccer going on in this community,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s always a challenge because kids play outside with club. It\u2019s something I do from the beginning of tryouts. We talk to the kids that if they play in a club outside of school, they are not allowed to play high school or vice versa. There\u2019s no excuse,\u201d<\/p>\n
In the case of the 5-foot-6 Zarate, he didn\u2019t play any soccer last year while focusing on academics and being part of the school\u2019s ROTC program. His weighted grade-point average is at 4.4. He wants to study to become a firefighter. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy family motivated me to be academically focused and I found a balance to do both,\u201d he said of his return to soccer. <\/p>\n
Goalies are usually much taller than Zarate, but he received lots of lessons on how to overcome the size disadvantage.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get that a lot that I\u2019m very short for a goalie,\u201d he said. \u201cAs a kid I, got training by a good trainer. He told me, \u2018You\u2019re pretty short for a goalie. As long as you can master being able to dive and jump high, you should be as good as them.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Garfield finished fourth in the Eastern League behind City Section soccer powers South East and Marquez, both of whom were eliminated after making the semifinals because of ineligible players.<\/p>\n
Given the opportunity to get hot in the playoffs, the Bulldogs have done just that. Junior Noe Marmolejo has been the leading goal scorer.<\/p>\n
The team is scheduled to take a bus to Sacramento on Friday, stay at a hotel Friday night, rise early for its game on Saturday, then immediately return home. Considering how loyal the Boyle Heights community is, look for lots of fans supporting the team in Sacramento and when that bus returns home.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an honor,\u201d Serrano said of being the first City team to play for a state soccer title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When a freshman is wondering whether to play sports or focus on academics because of the immense time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[2473,98428,98430,96482,98427,23675,98431,3410,48,52,51,7036,47,50,49,1741,121,4265,98429,31706,98426],"class_list":["post-214610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-bulldogs","tag-club-soccer","tag-club-team","tag-garfield-high","tag-goalie","tag-ineligible-player","tag-javier-zarate","tag-kid","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-last-year","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-lot","tag-sacramento","tag-school","tag-serrano","tag-soccer-team","tag-zarate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}