Malden High Girls Soccer & Girls Volleyball Teams Tourney-Bound!

Golden Tornado Spikers hit (long!) road vs. Springfield; Blue & Gold Booters await seeding call sometime today

By Steve Freker

  When they put the whole kit and kaboodle of MIAA State Tournament configurations — the “true” State Tourney, using the whole map — they TOLD us there would be days like this.

And road trips like the one that Head Coach Dan Jurkowski and his Malden High School Golden Tornado Girls Volleyball Team faced yesterday. How’s a 94.3-mille trip to play at Springfield Central High School last night grab you? That’s what Malden was facing yesterday: a four-hour-plus roundtrip in the first round of the MIAA Division 1 Girls Volleyball State Tournament preliminary game.

At least Coach Jurkowski, who grew up in Western Mass. and was a three-sport standout at Belchertown High School, moving on to graduate from UMass Amherst, doesn’t need a GPS to ramble 100-plus miles down the Mass. Pike to find Springfield.

“It is what it is, when you’re down in the second half of the Power Rankings, you get what you can get,” said Coach Jurkowski, whose team won eight of its last 10 games at an early .500 start, finishing 14-6 overall.

The seedings are deceptive, considering the seedings of the two teams, with Springfield Central (16-3) the 32nd seed (of 33 teams) and Malden (14-6) the 33rd and final seed.

The winner of last night’s matchup for the Bob Uecker “upgrade” “must be in the front row” tomorrow, Saturday, November 1, on the road against undefeated and #1 seed Chelmsford (20-0) at 5:00 p.m. Chelmsford is the only undefeated team in the state’s Division 1 field.

“We are happy at how we finished the regular season,” Coach Jurkowski said. “We know what we are up against, but we will show up. We will be ready to compete.”

Playing in a fifth straight State Tournament, Girls Volleyball happens to own the school’s longest-running postseason qualifying streak, tied with its Spring Season Boys Volleyball brothers, who also have competed after the regular season in five consecutive years. Boys Volleyball also is coached by Jurkowski, who has overseen a rapid rise in interest and popularity in the sport of volleyball — for girls and boys — in Malden in the past seven to eight years.

“We’ve been fortunate that a lot of younger kids have been getting involved in volleyball through the many clinics and offseason opportunities that have become available through our partnership with Malden Recreation,” Coach Jurkowski said. “It’s great to see.”

Malden was looking for continued leadership from senior captains Rashmi KC, Sania Chen and Namaicka Jeune as the postseason unfolded out West yesterday. It is a veteran team this year with eight seniors all told, including Katelynn Vo, Danielle Harrington, Gabby Lemus, Avani Chhetri and Sorin Mamouzette. Other Varsity players include juniors Raquel Ferreira, Maliya Kazadi and Ly Nguyen and sophomores Xiaohui Li, Alexis Lee and Hadassa Pierre-Rene.

***

Malden Girls Soccer wanted to improve on last season; Tornados did that… and more

Malden Girls Soccer Head Coach Rick Caceda went to his first-ever New England Patriots game this past Sunday. He has something in common with that Mike Vrabel-led juggernaut so far this season. Like the Patriots, who had a dismal season last year and are experiencing a renaissance this season at 6-2, Caceda’s Malden team — which slogged through a dreary 4-14 fall last year — has also “flipped the script.” Heading into this year’s MIAA Division 2 State Girls Soccer Tournament, Malden carries a 12-5-3 record into the postseason, the Golden Tornado program’s best finish in years.

“We expected we would be able to turn it around this year and challenge for a state tournament berth, but we did a lot better than that,” said Coach Caceda, whose team awaits tomorrow’s soccer seedings meeting with the MIAA.

Malden may have not challenged for the Greater Boston League championship this season — despite a dozen victories — but it played competitive soccer day in and day out, despite an acute lack of overall varsity experience. The Tornados leaned heavily on senior captains Brenda Darisse, Mercedes Costa Aispuro and Maria Couto Martins, who provided leadership and some goal scoring among them. The Malden junior class was especially solid this season, led by captain Amanda Berliner, along with Meriam Bouchtout, Nyla Pierre, Ava Lacasse and Imane Agoumad.

The goaltending was an out-and-out revelation. Not only did goaltender Sofia Leon shine just about every game, recording a whopping EIGHT shutouts in 18 outings‚ she is only a freshman! “We certainly did not expect to get what we received from Sofia in the goal this year,” Caceda said. “She [Leon] did a fantastic job and did her best to keep us in a lot of games.”

Caceda said he is sure his team will continue to bring a show of confidence and hard work into the postseason, which is expected to begin Monday with a road preliminary game.

The Malden Girls Soccer team, in addition to the players already mentioned in this report, includes senior Thalyta Andrade, junior Maya Pedraza-Alexander, sophomores Wiam Saadouni and Brianna Darisse and freshmen Khadija Diagne and Gabriella “Gabby” Sanchez Martinez.