Quick Studies

The Fairmont Prep girls’ soccer team won’t be breaking into the Orange County top 10 any time soon. The Huskies have only two lower-level club players on their roster, and many of the girls are just learning the game.

Nonetheless, the Huskies qualify as one of the county’s major surprises this season. After graduating 11 seniors from a team that went 0-15-2 last season, they have a 9-2-1 record--playing almost an identical schedule--and are serious contenders for the Academy League title in the program’s third season.

On the surface, the turnaround doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Usually, when a team loses a large core of senior starters, a rebuilding period is expected.

For the Huskies, however, the exodus turned out to be a blessing.

“The seniors weren’t as dedicated as we are now,” said Kelli Behrens, a sophomore team captain. “They didn’t care about winning. And the more we lost, the worse it got.”

Kyle Simmons, the second-year coach, was more diplomatic, saying the seniors were concentrating more on their college applications than on soccer. But even he agreed with Behrens.

“I knew we’d be better this season because half the team was leaving,” said Simmons, who played high school soccer at San Clemente. “But also, last year was my first year of coaching and I made a lot of rookie mistakes.”

Behrens and her fellow team captain, senior Bethany Ramos, said last season was so difficult that they were even picked on at school, and playing wasn’t fun anymore.

“It got pretty bad,” Behrens said. “All we ever heard was, ‘Lost another game, huh?’ ”

But now the jeers have stopped. This team, which includes seven freshmen, seven sophomores, two juniors and four seniors, has won seven of its last eight games, and classmates are starting to take notice.

In fact, Ashley Derakhshanian, a senior who transferred to Fairmont from Loara this season, says the Huskies are drawing more fans than Loara did when she was there.

More important, playing soccer is fun again.

“At Loara they expected us to win, so there was always a lot of tension,” Derakhshanian said. “It’s a lot more fun to win here because we want to win. It’s so much more of a rush when it is not expected of you.”

Fairmont, which will join the new San Joaquin League next season, went 1-24-2 in its first two seasons. Last year, their first in the Academy League, the Huskies finished in the cellar. Now, they are battling St. Margaret’s for the title. However, the Tartans have the upper hand after dealing Fairmont a 3-0 defeat last week in the first of the teams’ two meetings.

“We have a few things up our sleeve for the next game,” Simmons said. “We know what they can do now and we know what they have, so we have some things we’re going to try.”

Against St. Margaret’s (9-8-1, 4-0), the Huskies appeared overwhelmed, but were still able to keep the game from getting out of hand.

The Fairmont offense was almost completely shut down. Forward Andrea Shoukair, the team’s leading scorer with nine goals, had only two or three quality touches.

Sophomore goalkeeper Janki Patel, who has six shutouts and had given up only 10 goals (six of them in the two losses), was impressive, recording 23 saves.

“I can’t believe how improved [Patel] is,” said Cindy Morgan, a coach at St. Margaret’s last year, when the Tartans outscored Fairmont, 22-0, in three meetings. “Last year, our team was kind of teasing her. I had to make them stop.

“[Fairmont] is about 10,000 times better than they were last year.”

The teams will meet again Feb. 6.

“I’ll be happy no matter how this season ends,” Simmons said. “We have already exceeded our expectations. But after finishing in last place, there is nothing we would like better than to win the title before we move to our new league.”