Dominguez Hills Has a Dynamite Duo in Soccer Coach and His Star

It could have been a Marine Corps boot camp. It certainly didn’t look like the kind of workout that Kristi White, the premier women’s soccer player at second-ranked Cal State Dominguez Hills, would expect before the national Division II finals.

But there was the team’s leading scorer, under a hazy, hot afternoon sun, running in formation with her teammates, circling the Lady Toro practice field in preparation for Saturday’s national semifinal with fourth-ranked Keene State of New Hampshire at Miami.

Around and around the team went, the Palos Verdes Peninsula and the oil refineries of Carson as backdrops in the distance. At the helm, Coach Marine Cano barked instructions.

For the first half of the two-hour session, White and her teammates, who wore matching black shorts and red T-shirts, never touched a soccer ball. They did sprints, they raced and when those were done the women jogged the field, stopping only once for water.

“Back to the basics,” explained Cano, which is why White, a senior from Camarillo, has spent eight seasons under his tutelage, first on a youth state select team and for the last four as a Lady Toro.

“Conditioning is a big part of Marine’s program,” White, a graduate of Rio Mesa High School, said. “In high school I lacked conditioning. I thought I could become a better athlete if I came here.”

White, according to observers, has always had a knack for scoring goals, something she calls “the green light.” In her career at Dominguez Hills the 5-foot-4 midfielder has set school records for goals (33), assists (31), total points (97) and season assists (16).

A knee injury forced her out of action half of her sophomore year, or those totals would be higher. With 17 goals and 50 points this year, she ranks second in both of those seasonal categories.

“She’s our Magic Johnson. That’s for sure,” said Cano.

Cano, a former professional goalie, coaches state select girls and women’s age group teams in the off-season. He recognized White’s talent early in her career.

“I always saw a very good player there,” Cano said. “At the time, I thought I had a chance to help her develop. It was a little dream that I had that has all come together this season.

“She always had the skills, but she was never completely fit and conditioned.”

Cano’s feisty style and tough conditioning program, plus the chance to go away to school but remain fairly close to home, persuaded White to join Cano when she chose a college. Dominguez Hills, not known for over-generous scholarship offers, allowed Cano to give White a full ride, putting her on similar footing with another of the Division II university’s “franchise players,” basketball star Anthony Blackmon. Blackmon, now playing professionally in Japan, went on to become the 1989 California Collegiate Athletic Assn. Athlete of the Year.

Cano expects similar attributes for White, who figures to be named All-American no matter how Dominguez Hills fares at the national tournament this weekend.

If White plays the role of the attacking halfback, as she has done all season, Dominguez Hills figures to play a major role in the championship tournament, which also includes top-ranked and host Barry University and sixth-ranked Adelphi University of New York.

“She’s our spark plug, a technician, the one that makes us go,” Cano said.

White wouldn’t go that far.

“I’ve always had the drive to go to the goal,” White said. “Most players just have skills, but they don’t have the drive to go to the goal.”

A forward in her youth, White, began playing in Camarillo’s American Youth Soccer Organization at 8. By the time she was 12, she was playing on a boys age-group club team. In her first game with the boys, she anticipated a rebound off the crossbar and scored on a header, much to the chagrin of the opposing team.

“It was kind of neat,” the diminutive blonde said.

White has been ineffective only twice this season for the Lady Toros (18-2), who set school records for most wins and shutouts (15) in a season. Both times were games with UC Santa Barbara, a highly ranked Division I team. In fact, the Gauchos handed Dominguez Hills its two losses. Santa Barbara just had too many quick players shadowing White wherever she went on the field.

“But,” said Athletic Director Dan Guerrero, “just think what we could have done to Santa Barbara if we had three or four Kristi Whites.”

Dominguez Hills often builds its teams around skilled players from the South Bay, a talent-laden soccer hotbed. By bringing in White, Cano introduced a new wrinkle to the area.

“I wouldn’t have done so well without the rest of the team,” White said. “Our freshmen helped out a lot. We lost only two seniors from last year’s team, so we had the base to do well.”

White characterizes the Dominguez Hills team as being “physical, (yet) having the same finesse of any Division II school.”

Said Cano: “It’s scary. We still have not reached our potential.”

White, however, admits that she is in better condition. She needs to be too. Two weeks from now she’ll be back in Florida to play in a national tournament as a member of a Western women’s select team.