Invaluable Leadership

A windstorm hit Santa Ana’s Centennial Park particularly hard last Thursday just before dusk, kicking up debris on the mostly dirt field where the Long Beach Wilson girls’ soccer team was earning its first-round victory in the Mater Dei tournament.

The blustery conditions caused problems for airborne soccer balls and determined defenders sprinting to track them down. But they didn’t deter seniors Kelly Little and Shannon Smith, each of whom scored a goal in Wilson’s 2-0 victory over Irvine Northwood.

“I’ve never played on a field so bad in my life,” said Little, a Times’ first-team selection last year and one of the top returning players this season. “But after so many years of soccer, I can deal with it.”

That’s the perspective of a player who has done more than a decade’s worth of wind sprints, toured the country with talented club teams and -- most important for Wilson Coach Dalton Kaufman -- experienced three years of Division I soccer.

Four-year varsity starters are a breed all their own, invaluable from the first whistle of fall practice to the last minute of the playoffs. And this season, many of the region’s top teams will rely on these soccer savvy 17- and 18-year-olds to lead the way.

“Four-year starters are so important to a system,” Kaufman said. “Not many girls are ready as freshmen. Some are physically prepared but not mentally.”

Luckily for Kaufman, he had three players who possessed both elements. Wilson’s Class of 2004 comprises team-captain Little, a UC Irvine-bound stopper who scored 18 goals last season and has two this year; Smith, a three-year, first-team All-Moore League midfielder heading to Baylor; and Katie Poehler, a speedy, all-league midfielder.

This season, all three are focused on fulfilling a promise.

“Ever since we were freshmen, we said to each other, ‘We have to have a CIF championship ring,’ ” Little said. “We sometimes wear our guys’ championship rings [the Wilson boys’ soccer team went undefeated and won the Division I championship in 2003] as motivation.”

If the Wilson girls’ team follows suit, it will likely be the trio’s chemistry that gets them there. Little and Smith have played club soccer together since they were 9, when they occasionally played against Poehler’s team. But thus far it has been a rocky start; the team is 3-2-1 and the three have combined for only four goals. Still, they have a few months left to prove themselves.

As do North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake’s four-year starters Jamie Artsis and Julia Shapira, who both missed Thursday’s 2-1 loss to Lake Forest El Toro because of the flu.

Artsis, a Michigan-bound midfielder, and Shapira, a defender heading to Brown, are two of the team’s four four-year players (the other two did not start all four seasons). Their job: to ensure that another early playoff exit doesn’t occur.

“Many people say because they lost [4-1 to Los Alamitos] in the first round, it wasn’t a good season,” said Coach Stacy Schwartz, whose team is 3-3. “This year, when we are facing steeper criticism, experience is vital.

“This senior class, when they were freshmen, were the core of the team.”

All around the Southland, four-year starters are taking on lofty leadership responsibilities. Like Monica Storm, a midfielder for Chino Hills Ayala, who Coach Jeff Allen said is as much a teacher as a player. Or Kandice McLaughlin, a midfielder for Woodland Hills El Camino Real, who often beats first-year Coach Shanna Sarris to the punch.

“We think the same way,” says Sarris of McLaughlin, last season’s City player of the year with 22 goals and 11 assists. “She gets out and yells at the players who I can’t get to.”

While El Camino has won three consecutive City titles, McLaughlin has only been on the field for one of them -- a red card in the semifinals prevented her from playing as a sophomore, and a trip to Florida for the under-17 national team tryouts got in the way of a title-game appearance last season. So the four-year starter has her eyes on a fourth-straight title.

How else to explain the importance of experienced seniors? Sometimes a superlative is best: “She’s the best player to come through this school,” said Arcadia Coach Shelby Greep of senior midfielder Brittany Klein.

Added Klein: “It’s important for me to take a leadership role on the team. I know what it takes to win.”