Hollister product Alexandria Reckas survived the latest cuts for
the state ODP team
HOLLISTER
It’s not easy, but Alexandria Reckas is certainly making it appear so.
The 12-year-old footballer from Hollister survived yet another cut – her fourth to date – after she was recently named to the Olympic Development Program’s Northern California state team.
A seventh-grader at Sacred Heart, Reckas is one of just 45 members now with the chance to head to Oregon and then Stockton before an all-encompassing 13-state regional team is selected, the final stage for Reckas’ 12-year-old age group.
“I want it really bad,” Reckas said. “My goal now is to make it to the regional team.”
Why stop now, right?
Reckas, who was chosen out of 85 girls this time around, delivered a strong performance during the tryout on Saturday, Dec. 6 in Morgan Hill; so strong, in fact, that she showed up painfully sore for Sunday’s session.
And little did she know, coaches would be trimming 20 players at the end of Sunday’s tryout.
“On Sunday morning, I was so sore and I didn’t think I showed that well,” Reckas said. “I was more sore and tired. I wasn’t doing my runs. I wasn’t doing the things I usually do.
“But I had one more chance and I had to show them who I really am. I just kind of pumped myself up.”
Reckas made the cut and was rewarded the chance for another tryout, this time in Ripon on Dec. 13 and 14 when temperatures dipped to 36 degrees, said father Ted Reckas.
“She was pretty exhausted. It was definitely an experience,” said Ted, who also coaches his daughter on the Hollister United U13 Class I girls team. “But she did very well in Ripon. She was clearly in the top at Ripon.
“She was extremely tenacious. She wouldn’t give up.”
Ted described a sequence in Ripon where Reckas was driving down the field, only to have an opponent steal the ball away. While some might have given up, Reckas chased down the defender, retrieved the ball, and continued driving down the field.
“If she lost the ball, she was going to get it back,” Ted said. “Her passing was crisp, her dribbling was crisp, and she even made a couple of goals left footed.”
ODP, which develops soccer talent by identifying the top players on a state level through a series of tryouts where players are selected based on technique, tactics, ability and attitude, won’t be making another cut until next year, giving Reckas time to work on her weaknesses – shooting, she says – instead of worrying about where she stacks up on the pitch.
“It’s definitely more intense,” Ted said, “because of the caliber of players there.”
Of course, in keeping with the cutting trend, coaches and state evaluators will make another “cut” from 45 to 36 – the remaining nine players would stay on as alternates, however – before two 18-member “A” and “B” teams are selected.
Both those teams will head north to Portland, Ore., in May and then to Stockton in June, competing against other state teams before the regional team is chosen.
Last year, only seven players from Northern California made the regional team.
So although Reckas is making it look easy, it’s certainly not an easy task, by any means.
