Fab 5 have high hopes for final season

By Kyle Jorrey jorrey@theacorn.com

THE FINAL CHAPTER-Oak Park seniors, from left,Tatiana Camacho, Whitney Steininger, Roxana Sadeghi, Rachel Levine and Sam Stoll are looking for an appropriate ending to what has already been a highly successful career at OPHS.

Despite all the success they’ve had during their three-and-a-half seasons at Oak Park High School (three Tri-Valley titles, one co-CIF championship), Eagle senior soccer players Sam Stoll, Whitney Steininger, Rachel Levine, Roxana Sadeghi and Tatiana Camacho say they aren’t yet satisfied.

Sure, it’s been a nice ride, but not having a strong final year on a team where they’ve accomplished so much would be liking baking a whole cake and not putting on the icing, say the players.

"This is it. This is our final chapter," said Sadeghi, a fullback who competed on the varsity as a freshman along with her four fellow soon-to-be-graduates. "The time is running out for us and we are playing every game like it’s our last. Yes, we’ve already done a lot but we feel like we have to cap it off, because for some of us this is it."

No one sings the praises of the fabulous five more than head coach Ted Eggleston, who first gave the girls the opportunity to play together three years ago. Since then, the Eagles have won three league titles and constantly contended in the playoffs. This year OPHS is off to a 4-3-2 start, winning its first two games in league against St. Bonaventure and La Reina in impressive fashion.

"I have a tremendous respect for my seniors, both as players and as people," Eggleston said. "They have been a pleasure to coach and they have made my job very easy this year because they are such good leaders. So much of the direction of the team comes from them . . . they run the show when I’m not around. If there was a way I could keep them in school God knows I would do it in a minute."

The group is anchored by Stoll, a pin-point accurate striker who was last season’s Tri-Valley League Offensive Player of the Year. In her three seasons, Stoll has shown aptitude at both finding the goal and setting up others.

"I don’t think I’ve ever had a forward who’s had more assists," Eggleston said.

Stoll said the lessons the seniors have learned over the last three seasons are an asset on the field. She said experience, especially CIF-winning experience, makes a difference.

"We definitely feel a connection when we play, especially Rachel (Levine) and me," Stoll said of the seniors. "She’s a center (midfielder) and I’m a forward and we just always see one another. But all of us are close on and off the field, which I think really helps with the team dynamic and how we are able to lead the younger players."

A shaky start to the season led Stoll and the rest of the seniors to want to bring the team together. Thanks to the friendships they’d already begun with some of the freshmen, the task to unify was soon accomplished.

"We didn’t want it to be the seniors and everybody else, we wanted all of us together as a family," Camacho said. "In the past the upperclassmen had been very intimidating, and we are trying to change that."

Camacho, a successful long-distance runner on the Eagles’ track team, is another all-CIF striker and the only one of the five not a native of Oak Park—she is from Oxnard.

Camacho said the opportunity to play varsity as freshmen is what provided the group with its common thread.

"We were thrown out there on varsity as freshman and we had to stick together," said Camacho, an avid reader. "It made us bond because we were always the only ones in our grade, and that bond has lasted."

Levine, the team’s operator in the middle, said her primary goal is to see that the Tri-Valley League trophy stays at OPHS beyond her graduation.

"We have to win league, we have to, then we can see what happens in CIF (playoffs)," said Levine, a lover of photography who works for the school’s yearbook staff. "We have done it every year since we seniors have been here and we don’t want that to change. We’re not going to let it."

In the past two years, Oak Park has collided with nearby rival Oaks Christian in the postseason and both time the Eagles have lost. In 2003 the Eagles and Lions shared the Div. V title, and last year OC bumped Oak Park out of the quarterfinals with a 1-0 victory.

Clearly, taking down the Lions remains the seniors’ most-prized goal.

"We’re taking this season one game at a time, but (Oaks Christian) is always in the back of our minds," Levine said. "We so badly want another shot at them in the playoffs . . . a win against them would feel so amazing."

Stoll agreed wholeheartedly.

"Even though they aren’t our rivals in league, we know they’ll be there waiting for us in CIF," Stoll said. "But we look forward to it because it is such a great rivalry and because it drums up so much team spirit from both schools."

But for now the Eagles know their focus must remain on league, and on watching out for that surprise team that wants to take their crown.

"We all want to finish with our fourth league title and just continue the tradition and leave this team with success," said Steininger, the team’s sweeper and one of a few avid snowboarders on the squad. "We want to finish strong because we truly love our team, and a lot of the games we’ve won so far have been because of heart."