BOYS’ SOCCER PLAYOFFS : Mission Bay’s Susi Shreds All the Competition

It’s difficult to tell whether San Diego City College Coach Milton Hidalgo was mixing cliches or just got it backward when he called Mission Bay’s Aaron Susi a “rough diamond.”

Did he mean a diamond in the rough? Susi doesn’t play for any of the area’s highly regarded soccer clubs, credited with producing the best local players. Yet Susi is considered among the top three strikers in the county.

Or maybe Hidalgo was alluding to Susi’s unpolished skills?

A left-footed forward, Susi has been called a Division I prospect by some coaches. Another said he has the skills to play in Europe.

Hidalgo could have meant both.

“We call them shredders,” Hidalgo said of powerful shooters. “ And this guy can shred . But at times he makes poor decisions. You can draw a basketball analogy. There are times when you have to give up the ball so you can fill the lane and get the ball back. . . . But I can see why he gets into bad habits. He’s so good (compared to those around him).”

A senior, Susi will play his last high school game today at Torrey Pines as the Buccaneers and St. Augustine meet in the Division III Section championship at 2:30 p.m.

In other games, Patrick Henry and Mira Mesa play for the Division I title at Torrey Pines (7:30), Torrey Pines and San Pasqual meet in the Division II championship at Hilltop (7:30) and La Jolla Country Day and Bishop’s will battle for the Division IV crown at San Diego (7:30).

Susi led Mission Bay with 17 goals this year, including four of the Bucs’ five goals in the playoffs. He also has 15 assists, most of which have come off precision crossing passes and corner kicks rarely seen in high school soccer.

“The cross (or crossing pass) is really a lost art,” said George Logan, coach at Valhalla. “But he crosses so well with such great trajectory. He sort of floats it over, and since he’s left-footed, it bends away from the goalie.”

Tom Evans, who coached high school and club soccer here for more than a decade before leaving a couple years ago to coach professional teams in Austria and Germany, saw Susi in Mission Bay’s 2-0 semifinal victory over Coronado.

“If he’s not playing club soccer, he’s picking it up from somewhere,” said Evans, who returned here for the winter. “He has gotten a hold of some training tapes, or something. This guy could play overseas.”

Susi argues he has mastered a team sport with some individual enterprise.

“I just kick the ball around on my own,” he said.

His coach, Bruce Cochrane, didn’t know what to expect when the season began. He knew Susi wasn’t honing his skills with a club and he thought maybe that was affecting the player.

His lack of playing time seemed to be taking a toll. After scoring 12 goals his freshman season, Susi managed only half that many in each the next two years.

“But I had a talk with him the first day of school,” Cochrane said. “I put it on the line and told him he has a lot of natural talent and that he needed to get back to the form of his freshman year.”

Maybe that helped.

“My sophomore and junior years, I just didn’t have the heart I did as a freshman,” Susi said. “But I made the decision before this year that I was going to pick up my work rate.”