Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy’s Locateli named league’s most valuable player
There’s been an impressive list of Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy soccer players who have been selected the Mission League’s Most Valuable Player in the past few years.
Helena Locateli is the most recent athlete from the program to pick up the postseason hardware.
Locateli displayed her versatility as a midfielder/centerback and finished with three goals and two assists en route to be named the league’s most valuable player for the first time.
Locateli, a sophomore, earned the recognition after Tologs Amethyst Trang and Madison Leroy received the honors in 2018 and 2019, respectively.
“It’s brilliant to see Helena get MVP and I’m happy for her,” Flintridge Sacred Heart fifth-year coach Mark Snashall said. “She sees the entire field and she reads the game so well.
“She’s got that high intellectual level of soccer and she’s physical and aggressive on the ball.”
In all, six Tologs received all-league recognition. Flintridge Sacred Heart went 11-5-1, 4-3-1 in league to tie for second with Chaminade. Harvard-Westlake won the league championship (7-1). It marked the 11th time in the last 15 seasons that the Tologs took first or second in league.
Senior Hillary Howard, junior Joshlyn Aguirre and sophomore Lexy Gazmarian were named to the all-league first team.
Howard, a midfielder, collected five goals.
“She’s the captain of our team and did a great job at leading by example,” Snashall said. “We knew we could count on Hillary all of the time.”
As a goalkeeper, Aguirre finished with a 0.72 goals-against average and allowed nine goals in 16 appearances. The Tologs finished with 10 shutouts.
“Joshlyn is a great goalkeeper and it would have been tough without her,” Snashall said. “She continued to make a lot of big saves and we’ll have her back next year.”
Gazmarian had one assist and helped stabilize the Tologs as a defender.
“Lexi is a very consistent player,” Snashall said. “She’s another one of our player who reads the game well and she’s very quick to the ball.”
A pair of freshmen from Flintridge Sacred Heart received all-league second-team nods.
Annamarie Vazquez, a forward/midfielder, finished with one goal and two assists.
Theresa Daniels had one assist as a midfielder.
“Annamarie is a very versatile player and continued to get better throughout the season,” Snashall said. “She proved she could handle any challenge.
“Theresa worked very hard at practices to get better and she won a lot of 50-50 battles.”
As the No. 2 seed in the CIF Southern Section Division II playoffs, Flintridge Sacred Heart defeated Riverside Poly before falling to Capistrano Valley in the second round. In 2019, Flintridge Sacred Heart reached the Division III title match and won the CIF Division III Southern California Regional championship.
