[media-credit name=”Illustration by Diana Incencio and Christopher Soto” align=”alignright” width=”251″][/media-credit]A brilliant season with 14 wins and a 9-1 conference record earned the Southwestern College men’s soccer team… nothing.
In an announcement that enraged Jaguar players and supporters, and puzzled even people from other colleges, SWC was ranked 16th in Southern California—two places below the top 14 threshold required to enter the state playoffs.
Ten colleges with inferior records were placed higher than the Jags, who enjoyed a 14-3-3 season, and 9-1-2 conference record. Vanity Fair isn’t the only organization to snub Chula Vista this week, the California Community College Soccer Coaches Association delivered a left hook to the head.
“It’s all about who you play,” said Todd Curran, president of the association. “It’s not based on the number of wins you have, but the quality of wins and ties.”
Curran said SWC played a weaker schedule than other higher ranked teams, thus was ranked lower.
SWC had a goal differential of 37 in favor and 14 against, one of the best ratios in the state. It was not enough apparently to impress the association.
“For the Power Point rankings you are assigned a point value for every team you play and depending on whether you beat a team that is at a certain winning percentage,” said Curran. “Depending on whether that game is a home or away game, you’re assigned a number for the total of those wins ties, or losses.”
With an opportunity to be crowned Pacific Coast Athletic Conference League champions, the Jags faced San Diego City College in the final game of the season. A narrow lead slipped away when City capitalized on a late penalty kick to earned a draw and the conference title.
“To get to this point working as a team was key,” said freshman Juan Diaz. “What didn’t make it happen was that all of us lost our head, including me.”
Even so, going from champs to chumps seemed impossible to many SWC players.
“It doesn’t make sense,” said sophomore forward Hector Gomez. “We only lost three times this season and there are teams that lost seven and are still in.”
Seven of the 14 teams that qualified for state playoffs have lower overall win percentages than the Jags. Teams schedule opponents for nonconference play and each opponent is given a point value to accumulate toward the team’s power rank, allowing teams with subpar records to squeeze into a playoff spot.
Some Jags put on brave smiles and looked back at the campaign fondly.
“It was a good season and we did our best, but we need to work on discipline on the field,” said sophomore defender Jaime Manzo. “Talking back to the referees and avoiding fouls are areas that need improvement, but besides that we trained hard and played well.”
Coach Cem Tont said he was more than thrilled with his squad this year and views this season as the highlight in his coaching career.
“It was one of the most outstanding seasons I have had in the last 18 years,” said Tont. “We had a great record and the level of play was outstanding.”
A talented core of freshman is expected to come back and with the incoming talent the Jags are set to field another impressive team in 2012.
“This year we got a little taste of being champs, so next year we are going to go get it,” said freshman Juan Villaseñor.