Juan Diego hopes for better luck in '07 seeding

Maybe Juan Diego's boys soccer team will eventually catch a postseason break.

During each of the past two years, the Soaring Eagle had a fantastic regular season and entered the state tournament as the top-ranked team in 3A. Each time, it was forced to play Region 11's top seed in the second round of the tournament.

Both times, Juan Diego was beaten, including a 3-2 loss to Logan in the 2006 quarterfinals.

The good news for the Draper school is that the squad was quite young during each of those two seasons, and it will be hoping that the third time is the charm in 2007.

Juan Diego's potent goal-scorers were discussed by soccer enthusiasts throughout the season. What some failed to realize, though, was that it took a fantastic midfield engine to drive the Soaring Eagle's attack and create all the goals.

Excluding its quarterfinal game against Logan, Juan Diego played a 3-5-2 throughout the year, with the ultra-talented trio of Tysen Gehring, Ryan Beck and Angel Enriquez in the center of midfield.

Gehring was the workhorse that helped win the ball; Beck was a supreme passer with great vision; Enriquez was the talented star that could shoot from distance.

Together, they formed one of the state's elite midfields. And they created plenty of goals for a pair of talented finishers — Kyle Beck and Kevin Flynn. The two juniors, who are close friends off the field, finished as co-3A leading scorers with 23 goals each.

Juan Diego's season came to an end against No. 2 Logan in the quarterfinals. The Grizzlies jumped out to a 1-0 lead midway through the first half, and the Soaring Eagle was never able to completely recover from that blow.

One of the interesting aspects of Juan Diego's year was its nonregion schedule. Because it wasn't really challenged in Region 8 contests, coach Mark Drown scheduled an extremely tough set of nonregion games — all played on Saturdays — to prepare his group for the postseason. Juan Diego played Brighton, Viewmont, Layton, Copper Hills and Waterford in nonregion action.

Looking ahead to 2007, Juan Diego will likely be the preseason favorite to win Class 3A. Drown returns all of his squad except three players — Gehring, defender Fabian Castillo and goalkeeper Tony Speare.