1 week Ago By Jacob Steinberg
Mt. Hebron boys soccer senior Jonathan Sanchez has been an integral part of the Vikings in multiple positions throughout his high school. In the team’s latest playoff run, Sanchez has served as goalie and became an integral part of bringing the Vikings to the Class 3A state championship game.
Sanchez and Mt. Hebron face River Hill at 7:30 p.m.
Thursday at Loyola Maryland’s Ridley Athletic Complex for the state title. Sanchez spoke with the Howard County Times about the opportunity to end his career with a championship. This season has had the emotions of a rollercoaster.
The start of the season wasn’t the best for us, but toward the end we got ourselves together. The playoff run has been extremely good. We beat Chesapeake and North Hagerstown, who was the No.
1 seed, and then beating South River recently, the state champions from last year, was an amazing experience. Probably the best year of soccer we’ve had. Moving from goalie to midfield wasn’t the idea I had for my sophomore year, but I learned the way to play as a field player, which helped me a lot through the years.
Using that for senior year helped a lot with the team, especially now that I’m in goal. The emotions were crazy. Some of them were very nerve-wracking, especially the overtime penalty kick against South River.
That penalty kick had up and down emotions because we thought it was the end of the season. Overall, I think the emotions are not part of the penalty kicks, it’s all about mentality and just focusing on putting it at the back of the net. As a goalie, I was just thinking, ‘I have to save this ball.
’ Just getting into this player’s head, make him miss or force him to one side and just try my best to save it. Throughout this playoff run I’ve been staying in goal. During the Marriotts Ridge playoff game we were down 1-0 and coach knew we needed more attack and balance in the midfield, and he decided to put me in the middle, which really helped the team.
After 10 minutes we scored the game-tying goal, and we went to overtime and won in penalty kicks. We wanted to play River Hill again since we didn’t have the best game back in the regular season. So, playing them again is really exciting and we want to beat them this time.
Winning states. Playing with my teammates for the very last time and have a happy ending. I think excitement, some nerves because you never know, anything can happen in soccer.
But mostly excitement because the team made it this far, and we really want to win this. Everyone has been supporting us. They’ve been telling us, ‘You guys got this.
’ That’s really helped the team, especially the bench players on our team. Ever since the playoffs, they’ve been getting into [opposing] players heads, getting hype, yelling and motivating us, which really helped the team up. I think it’s about never giving up, especially since we were missing some starters from the backline and our striker.
Once they came back, they helped a lot with the team. The whole team just stepped up and had passion for the sport and gave it their all for all 80 minutes of the game. This year we started having various superstitions.
We usually start a freshman at left midfield for the first 10 minutes of the game and then sub him out. Each time we’ve done that, we’ve been winning. I’ve been wanting to change my cleats and my gloves as well, since they’re all torn up, but my teammates said, ‘No, keep it.
’ That saved us the game. Usually, it’s Spanish music pop or reggaetón, a mixture of them. I mainly listen to Rauw Alejandro or Bad Bunny.
I think it’s sophomore Saleem Mechtat. He’s a very funny guy. He brings joy to the team, and he makes everyone laugh.
I think Tyler Hagyard. His mentality, ever since the start of the season was a great mindset. He’s been coaching us, telling us where to go.
Helping the underclassmen and helping the team overall. I think extra time and golden goal because it’s a very special moment. Imagine scoring a game winner for the state title and winning it for the whole school and your team, which is very exciting.
Definitely saving the penalty kick in overtime against South River. Most of the players thought the season was over, but they all believed in me, so I had to step up. I saved a very crucial penalty kick.
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