For the past two years, Arturo Jimenez was the head coach of the Park View High girls’ soccer team. This season, Jimenez will still sport Park View’s red, white and blue colors. Only now it will be as head coach of the Park View boys’ steam.
"I had a great two years with girls who wanted to play soccer," said Jimenez, impressed with the girls’ brand of the high school game. "But I wanted to get back to coaching boys, so I applied for [the boys’ open position]. I got the job before Christmas."
Jimenez, prior to coming to Park View a few years ago, served as the Wakefield High boys’ soccer coach for 12 years. There, at the Arlington school, he led the Warriors to two district championships and eight appearances at the Northern Region playoffs. Twice, his Wakefield teams reached the region tournament semifinals.
"We had good teams there," Jimenez recalled.
Now, he returns to the boys’ game following his two seasons at the helm of the Park View girls.
"I’ve always been a boys’ coach," said Jimenez, a health and physical education teacher at Park View. "I’m loving [being back in the boys’ game]. I was excited when I got the job and excited with the first [team] meeting."
Jimenez, who said about 75 boys attended team tryouts a few weeks ago, is back into the swing of things again coaching high school boys.
"It was a very easy transition," he said, of returning to the boys’ game. "I knew what I wanted to do already. The kids have been great and done everything I asked them to do. They want to win like no other team I’ve had. [But] there is very good competition in the Dulles District."
<b>PARK VIEW </b>opened up the season in strong fashion last week with a pair of non-district wins. First, the Patriots won a 3-0 game at George Mason High School (Falls Church) on Wednesday. Then, two days later, Park View won at Madison High (Vienna), 2-1, on Friday.
Park View goals in the win over George Mason came from Kevin Goody and Andre Contreras. In the victory over Madison, the Patriots got goals from both Eric Roasado, a freshman forward, and fullback Kevin Flamingo.
Jimenez said both Madison and George Mason are physically big and fast teams that were good tests for Park View. Prior to the regular season, the Patriots had beaten Washington-Lee (Arlington), 4-0, in a pre-season encounter.
" I wanted to get my team some experience playing [larger] triple-A teams," said Jimenez, of meeting both W-L and Madison from out of the Northern Region.
Park View defeated Madison despite being without sophomore forward K.C. Onyeador, who missed the contest due to an injury.
Jimenez said his team has had good ball movement over its first two regular season wins.
"We’ve been knocking the ball around on people and moving [well] without the ball," said the coach. "I like to see the team spreading the ball out a little bit."
In all of Park View’s contests thus far — the scrimmage versus Washington-Lee and the regular season affairs at both George Mason and Madison, the Patriots have played on synthetic turf fields.
"They loved it," said Jimenez, of his players’ reactions to playing on the turf. "It was like heaven playing on those fields.
Park View’s team captains this spring are Kevin Santos, a senior defender, Alex Valasco, a senior center half, and Onyeador, the team’s sophomore forward.
"They’re great leaders," said Jimenez, of the trio. "I just go to them if I need anything done. The kids look up to them. They’re handling the team very well."
Park View will open up its district season this Friday night with a game at Loudoun County.