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Published on 08/11/1997 All articles from this issue

Mercury rises to the occasion

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By Pete Borello

Special to the Town Crier

The Central Valley Mercury soccer team beat the heat and its opponents earlier this month at the Snickers Youth National Championship.

The girls' under-17 squad rolled through the Final Four to claim the national title Aug. 2 in Phoenix.

"We really held our own in this tournament," said Mercury midfielder Rachel Hoffman of Los Altos Hills. "We put both games out of reach early on."

It all started with a 5-1 rout of the Texas Challenge in the semifinals.

Central Valley then disposed of the Cincinnati Cardinals, 3-0, in the championship match.

And the scorching desert heat - which produced temperatures up to 110 degrees during the tournament - couldn't even stop the Mercury.

"I think we handled the heat really well," Hoffman said. "We drank a lot of liquids and we put our jerseys in ice water before each game. The jerseys were dry in 10 minutes, but it helped a little bit."

The club team also arrived in Arizona a week before the competition, which helped get the players acclimated to the dry conditions.

This is the second straight year the Mercury has captured the national title. The team won the 16-year-old division last summer.

But the Mercury won't have much time to enjoy its latest victory: the new season starts in September. The team seems up for the challenge, though.

"We're hoping to three-peat," said Hoffman, a senior at Gunn High School. "Our objective is to win the under-18 title next summer."

That goal certainly doesn't appear to be out of reach. The San Jose-based Mercury, which boasts some of the best prep players in the Bay Area, has not lost a game in almost three years.

Hoffman and Anna Kraus of Mountain View are the only two area players on the team. Kraus is a senior at St. Francis High School. The forward helped lead the Lancers to the Central Coast Section title last season.