Daily Journal Athlete of the Week: Cap’s Avery Motroni

Avery Motroni’s arm is no secret at Capuchino — or around the San Mateo County sports community at large.

The senior is coming off a first-team All-PAL Bay Division season as a catcher with Capuchino softball, a sport she will play at the NCAA Division I level as a commit to Arizona State.

There was a time in her Cap career when all Motroni played was softball. That changed last season, however, when flag football was introduced as a new high school sport throughout the county. And, when Motroni and her friends saw the announcement Cap was adding the sport, they all excitedly signed up.

“We tried out and we all just loved it,” Motroni said. “We thought it was so fun.”

Cap head coach Andre Kelley sure is thankful they did. Motroni has been selected as the Daily Journal Athlete of the Week for her standout performance in the Lady Mustangs’ 67-0 win last Wednesday over Terra Nova, a game in which she threw for 11 touchdowns while fronting her team’s third straight victory.

Kelley is the perfect coach for Motroni and Cap’s air-intensive offense. In his second year at the school, Kelley is both the head coach for flag football and the varsity passing coordinator for the boys’ football team. In fact, after Motroni’s big day against Terra Nova, Kelley had more touchdowns to engineer, as the Gentleman Mustangs rolled to a 61-20 win over Homestead, with quarterback Bobby Gomez passing for three touchdowns and running for another.

“It’s a little different seeing Capuchino throw the ball, that’s what everyone’s been saying,” Kelley said.

The flag football team found an array of ways to throw the ball last season. As a junior, Motroni played running back, with now-graduated Natalia Ortiz at quarterback. They both saw chances to show off their arms, though, with Kelley installing a slate of option plays.

“Building off that, she stepped in (this year),” Kelley said. “So I knew coming into this season, I knew she was going to be our quarterback.”

Cap turned to the old razzle-dazzle once again last week against Terra Nova. It wasn’t Motroni who lined up at quarterback for the play, but Alana Koenig, as the Mustangs offense sprung a double-reverse from Kelley’s bag of trick. Koenig first handed the ball to running back Nadia Keishk, who flipped it to Motroni for a dazzling 60-yard scoring strike to Star Gutierrez on a stop-and-go fly rout that hit the receiver in stride.

“We do a few of the longer passes every once in a while, but usually we tend to stick with the shorter passes ... but that one happened to work out pretty well,” Motroni said.

Kelley said the throw wowed the fans in attendance.

“That was all throw,” Kelley said. “It shocked the fans too.”

Motroni wasn’t Cap’s only star in the win, one that improved Cap’s record to 3-1 on the year. Koenig added a big day, not only on offense, where she hauled in four touchdown catches, but on defense where she recorded seven interceptions.

Motroni raved about the defense of Koenig, who played with a chip on her shoulder as Terra Nova was trying to throw to her side of the field all day.

“She took note of that, and any time the ball went up, she just went for the ball,” Motroni said.

Kelley has been a good get for Cap. He previously coached at City College of San Francisco, where he was the quarterbacks coach when Terra Nova’s all-time passing leader Anthony Gordon played there in 2015. Kelley has a longtime affiliation with the Gordon family, Not only did Kelley play with Anthony Gordon’s father Ryan Gordon at City College in 1992, the two were key skill players in the passing game with Ryan Gordon at quarterback and Kelley at receiver.

“I think he’s just a great coach,” Motroni said. “He’s so technical with things. He looks at the little things. With the film, he breaks everything down. ... He works really well with the offense both with girls and with boys. And I think he reads the other teams’ defenses really well.”

While Cap ran away with the game on the scoreboard — most of the second half was played to a running clock — the day didn’t start off so great. It was all hands on deck for the Mustangs, who were missing two players from their nine-player roster, leaving them with seven, just enough to field a team.

Motroni found a way to get just about all of them involved in the offense. Gonzalez added three touchdown receptions, Kaitlyn Staff had two, and Keishk and Jiselle Perez had one apiece.

“Since the arm strength of Avery, I’m able to pass the ball a lot,” Kelley said. “And she’s able to spread it around a lot.”

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct Star Gutierrez's name.