Hollister’s Hannah Press, Jahkya Turiello qualify to District II
soccer squad
HOLLISTER
Less than a month after Hollister’s Alexandria Reckas advanced all the way to the be-all, end-all 96 Region IV girls soccer team through the Olympic Development Program, fellow footballers Hannah Press and Jahkya Turiello moved forward with the next stage in their ODP development when each qualified to the elite District II team.
“I was surprised,” said Press, 13, an eighth-grader at Maze Middle School in Hollister. “I didn’t know, really. I wasn’t sure.
“I thought I was in the middle of it, but I didn’t know.”
It is perhaps difficult to tell where you stack up exactly during tryouts, especially when evaluators have so many players to look at.
Having previously survived a cut of around 80 players, Press and Turiello were just two players of a 26-member District II pool team that had been conducting practices over the last several weeks.
The most recent cut, which brought the amount of players down to the current 18-member District II squad, will be the last cut until later this year – good news for those soccer stars looking to rest easy for the time being.
“There were doubts,” said Turiello as to whether she would make the cut. “But of all the people, I thought I had a really good chance.
“And it’s a lot better because you have a friend there to comfort you along the way.”
As members of the Central Valley Explosion club team, Press and Turiello will now take the next step together, preparing to showcase their talents once again before an all-encompassing Northern California state team is selected.
“I think I need to work on controlling the ball under pressure,” said Turiello, 13, an eighth-grader at Spring Grove. “And challenging other players for the ball. On defense, you can pass around everyone to get upfield. But you also have the option of challenging the other people that are attacking you.”
Press, meanwhile, felt part of the reason she made the D-II team was for her aggressiveness on the field, able to move away from her comfort zone in order to attack defenders.
“But I need to be more physical,” she said. “I’m aggressive, but not as much as I can be.”
The two soccer standouts will have a month and a half of practices with their D-II team to work on their weaknesses. In September and October, two play-dates are scheduled, where District II will be up against the other six districts in Northern California, and approximately 126 players will be jockeying for the attention of state evaluators once again.
Press and Turiello are hoping it will be another standout performance.
“We were both surprised,” Press said. “But more than anything, we were just excited.”
