Rays Salvage Tie on Freshman's Circus Kick

One of the joys of high school sports comes when a young athlete makes a play that almost defies description. Such a play occurred Thursday, December 11, with homestanding Marco Island Academy trailing Mason Classical Academy, 1-0, in the second half. The goal salvaged a 1-1 tie for the Rays.

Rays head coach Fernando Higuera had just shouted instructions to freshman striker Kazim Kasap minutes before he scored the tying goal.

“We talked like five minutes earlier,” Higuera said. "I told him, you have to keep running. You never stop running. You have to keep running. You don't stop. This time he just kept running. He did exactly what I told him, and he scored the goal. So, I'm very happy for him.”

The coach couldn’t quite figure out how Kasap was able to squeeze his shot into the goal.

“He had a bounce, but he kept running,” Higuera said. "Then he turned to the left, went to try to catch the goalie. Kasim was able to get the ball, and he kept running. Almost ran out of angle. I don't know how he scored that angle because that angle was almost non-existent and he just hit the ball. He's a really good addition for the team's future. He's going to be a beast. I'm going to make him a beast. He's going to be super good."

The game itself was a classic match of two evenly matched teams, MIA at 5-2-1, Mason Classical at 2-1-3.

"It was very level,” Higuera said. "I feel we did not play our best. I think had we played our best, we probably had a really good chance to beat them. But not today. We had a really tough match last Tuesday against Southwest Florida Christian (a 2-1 loss), and I think they were a little bit tired. We had to run a lot. I think that's one of the things that probably played into not playing as well as we usually do, but it's okay. Mason also fought well. They fought hard and they played their game."

Higuera plans to practice as much as possible over the Christmas break. He anticipates a showdown with First Baptist Academy at the end of the season. That’s the team the Rays defeated to win the district championship last year.

"Hopefully we're matching the same intensity as last year,” he said. “Some teams in our district actually improved. Our top rival is probably FBA. We'll see how we do, but we're very level."

Higuera has a solid lineup, with a core of sophomores back from last year.

"Anthony Higuera, my son, and Matt Gallup are the two captains. Anthony he's kind of in charge of the defense. And Matt is the one for the offense. It's a good team. We're really good. We’ve been playing together for a while. I think the schedule is not helping. We had three games last week, two games this week. So, five games in two weeks. It takes a toll. We have practices after Christmas for whoever is here. And I just make sure that whoever didn't go out of town comes to practice. We might overeat. We don’t want to come back in two weeks without exercising. We have a game the day we come back, so we need to be ready.”

Higuera points to a win over local power Community School as a highlight of the first half of the season.

“We played against Community School. We’d never beaten them. We beat them for the first time. We beat them this year here on our field, 3-2. I know they're used to winning, but for us winning against a school like that, we may have over celebrated. I hope they didn't take it the wrong way. Their coach was amazing. He understood. I was just like, you know, sorry, we have never beaten you. So for us, it’s an achievement. I know that for them, it may be nothing. But for us, it is almost impossible to beat them.”

Last year, the Rays won the school’s first-ever district championship with a roster comprised almost exclusively of freshmen. He likes the prospects for this year’s team going forward.

"I think we're a bit better,” he said. "We have a solid everything. We're just relaxing too much. We're being very inconsistent. Sometimes we don't win when we should win. I need to work on that inconsistency. I need to figure that out because it happened a little bit last year. But this year it's becoming an issue. Consistency is what wins for us. And I think other teams right now are more consistent than us.”

Higuera is banking on three promising freshmen who are adjusting to the high school game.

“Kasap, Nikko Lendrihas, and Eian Korner are going to be very good,” Higuera said. "They came up from Marco Island Charter Middle School, and they're really good additions. They're going to make us better.”