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Senior defender Viviana Delgado was the smallest member of the Lady Rattlers’ soccer team. She was also the toughest.
Delgado lined up as a left back this season, usually matching up with every other team’s best forward. The team captain started in all 24 matches for San Marcos. Head coach Jason Carnley never subbed her out.
“She wants to prove to people that size doesn’t mean everything,” Carnley said. “And on a soccer field, you’re going to get hit, you’re gonna be bumped, you’re gonna get bruised, you’re gonna be pushed around. But she didn’t let that size affect her in any way. She just got after it.”
Delgado’s scrappiness was rewarded on Wednesday when she was named to the All-District 26-6A First Team. She was one of five Lady Rattlers to receive All-District recognition.
Senior goalkeeper Aubrey Reina was voted to the Second Team. Reina was initially a volleyball player, but Carnley had encouraged her to try soccer since the seventh grade. She finally chose to make the switch as a sophomore and has been patrolling San Marcos’ box ever since.
“She just became that person who we knew could trust in the back to the goal and not have to worry about it,” Carnley said. “She was fantastic for three years. It’s going to be a tough, tough position to fill. But she made so many wonderful saves for us when the game could have been way out of hand based on how many shots we had in our district this year.”
Seniors Paloma Carrizales and Katie Eiben and junior Izabella Olivo were all named Honorable Mentions. Carnley said he was proud of how many of his players received the laurels.
“It’s always tough when you have all these girls, you’ve been grooming them since they were freshmen, trying to make them into better people, good athletes,” Carnley said. “We were in a tough district, a tough spot, but we fought all the way through. In San Marcos, as you know, we’re not a community of club kids. So we don’t have, you know, sometimes the finances or the big-time support sometimes. And our girls, resilient, they battle through it and are able to overcome a lot of challenges.”
Carnley said he had hoped to experiment with some younger players in the final game of the season that was cut due to COVID-19. But he was glad his team got to play on Senior Night as its final match.
“We could definitely have changed up the atmosphere, some other people getting in. So playing that position would have been fantastic,” Carnley said. “It would have been awesome to go out with our seniors going out, you know, actually finishing the whole season. But thankfully, we were able to actually finish their last game at home with the squad one last time without just kind of saying, ‘Oh, you can’t play tonight.’ Because that’s almost where it was at. It’s awesome that we almost got to finish up like we should have.”
