Viking named ‘16 POY
Prep soccer: Valencia’s Javier Orellana earns Foothill’s top honor
The lasting image of Valencia boys soccer’s Javier Orellana will be of a player flying to the ball seemingly out of nowhere. Of an athlete darting to the out-ofbounds line to keep the ball in. Of a senior playing allout soccer.
Orellana will be remembered as a CIF SoCal Regional champion, a Foothill League champion and, now, the 2015-2016 Foothill League Player of the Year.
“I was overjoyed, very happy,” Orellana said of learning he’d won the award.
Orellana, a midfielder, scored five goals and assisted on another during league play, which saw the Vikings go 8-1-1 on their way to the league title and the school’s first CIF-Southern Section quarter and semifinal.
On the season, Orellana scored nine goals and dished out six assists. He was crucial, too, in Valencia’s defense-first mentality.
The Vikings gave up just four goals in league play.
And, at one point in the postseason, had allowed the fifth fewest goals of any Southern Section D4 team.
Orellana, along with Luis Garcia Sosa, served as a captain for Vikings head coach Tony Scalercio, who called the duo the backbone of the team.
Valencia’s run to the CIF SoCal Regional Championships
Division 4 title match was by far the deepest postseason surge in the history of Santa Clarita Valley boys soccer.
Orellana said he wants to be remembered as being on the first team to win a regional title.
“Nobody can take (that) away from us,” he said.
Three of Orellana’s teammates were honored on the all-league first team: seniors Garcia Sosa and Dylan Clifford, along with junior Josh Ferguson.
Garcia Sosa and Ferguson
were named All-CIF-SS.
Hart also had three players named to the Foothill’s first team, all seniors. Those were Niall Shaffery, Jose Pena and Joel Geck.
The Indians finished second place in Foothill League behind Valencia, but it was third-place Saugus that went on the seconddeepest playoff run of any league team.
The Centurions made their first quarterfinal since 2007, and junior James Johnson and senior
Matt Skier, both Foothill firstteamers, were a big part of the success.
Johnson — one of only two non-seniors to make the first team (with Ferguson) — was also named All-CIF-SS.
West Ranch rounded out the teams with multiple first-teamers, as seniors Josh Gendein and Corban Gray were honored.
Canyon senior Eder Ortiz and Golden Valley senior Leonard Medina were also named first team.