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The Antelope Valley Soccer programs started their Summer Soccer Camp on June 10th. The first day of summer camp was finally kicking off. When you walked into the practice field, you could count more than 65 athletes on the grass field. All AVC students enrolled in summer soccer at the college with dreams of being part of the Men’s soccer program. The community would stop their normal jogging routine to observe the number of people doing warm ups and would ask themselves, “What is happening today?”
The coach of the AVC Men’s soccer program makes his way onto the field and complete attention turns into his direction. Coach Stupar, makes his opening remarks, “Good morning students, my name is Coach Stupar, I would like to thank you all for coming today, this will be our biggest year ever….” He continued to address the soccer player hopefuls, “If you are serious about playing soccer at the college level, you will be required to do everything that is required of an intercollegiate athlete while training in a professional atmosphere”. “That means, discipline on and off the field…” The coach continues his opening remarks and the look on the faces of the potential AVC soccer players were of excitement. The look of excitement would not be kept for long by several athletes on the field, the coach blew his whistle and summer camp had begun.
Coach Stupar had kicked off the Summer Soccer Camp and the quest for a men’s soccer championship had begun as well. During the warmups, Coach Stupar was very kind in agreeing to be interviewed by us. Coach Stupar began his college soccer coaching at the College of The Canyons, when he and Phil Marcellin started the inaugural Men’s soccer program in 2003 at C.O.C. (College of the Canyons) while coaching the Women’s program simultaneously.
The Head Coach of Antelope Valley College is Coach Stupar, entering his 12th season at AVC and 17th season at the collegiate level. He started the men’s soccer program at AVC in 2016 and in its’ first year achieved the Western State Conference Player of the Year – Jose Mojica. Last season, the Men’s Soccer Team was 2nd in conference and missed the Championship by 1 point! Their overall record in 2018 was 10-5-5 and 6-1-3 in conference and earned four 1st Team, three 2nd Team, and 3 honorable mentioned W.S.C. awards, the highest number of awards in program history.
This year’s team has a lot of returning starters and as a result, the expectations to win the conference is very high. AVC will be hosting anywhere between 12-13 games this season and we are very excited to ask our fellow students to come and support our soccer programs. We have great expectations for the team this year, and we would love to see as many current and former students come out and support our men’s and women’s soccer teams!
Coach Stupar was pleased to announce that they have 9 returning starters from last year’s team and thus having no doubt that we will be competing to win our conference championship this year. Key players to watch this season:
Sebastyan Enriquez
Dylan Gonzalez
Joseph Perez
Rodrigo Martinez
Bryan Lima
Christian Gonzalez
Raymond Clark
Matt Garcia
Dakota Duncan
Alfredo Chinnery
The tryouts will be happening very soon and we want to wish the team a successful season. Lets go Marauders!
AVC plays @Cypress on August 23rd.
Photos by Juan Vargas and William Ortiz