Fly, Eagles, fly

Mayora wasn’t expecting a big turnout for the upstart Eagles, but even his humble expectations left him disappointed. Only six players showed up on first day of practice, and a majority of them had no real soccer experience. Needless to say, Mayora had his work cut out for him.

“The girls, I really don’t know,” Mayora said. “I didn’t expect this. I expected they were going to be undisciplined, but not like this.”

Fortunately for the fledgling Eagles, Mayora has a storied history of getting struggling soccer programs off the ground.

A 1972 graduate of Mountain View High at its classic former downtown location on Castro Street, Mayora, a lifelong soccer enthusiast, played three years of American football as a varsity kicker. So, when he started coaching boys’ varsity soccer at Cubberley High before the school closed its doors in 1979, he was keen to recruit from the football team to help the longtime struggling soccer program.

“They were all football players,” Mayora said. “There were no soccer players.”

In his first year as an assistant coach at Cubberley, the team went from last place to Santa Clara Valley Athletic League champions.

“I was lucky,” Mayora said. “Right place, right time, I guess. But I spoke their language (using football terminology) ... and we all motivated each other.”

Mayora enjoyed a similar run of success at San Mateo.

He took over the program during the pandemic. The Bearcats were coming off two losing seasons, and went 0-9 his first year at the helm in the shortened campaign during the spring of 2021. The next season, Mayora’s first full season running the program, San Mateo posted a 15-3-1 overall record and ran the table in the Peninsula Athletic League Lake Division. The season culminated in a 1-0 win over Gilroy in the CCS Division III playoff opener on Feb. 19, 2022, marking the program’s first postseason victory since 1995.

After three more years at San Mateo, all in the PAL Ocean Division, Mayora stepped down after the 2023-24 season. Residing in Sunnyvale, the commute became too much to bear, he said. In the offseason — during which, he stays busy as a coach at Peninsula Soccer Club in Foster City — he didn’t have any inclinations for returning to coach high school.

“No,” Mayora said. “There were some openings, even in San Jose ... but the traffic going from here to there, it takes you like an hour just to get to practice. I got tired fo doing that for many years.”

That’s when the small KIPP Esperanza school just 10 minutes from his house changed his mind.

“This was close to home, so I was like: ‘OK, I’ll do it,’” Mayora said.

By the Dec. 3 season opener at Eastside College Prep, the Eagles’ roster grew from six players to 11, though Mayora still had to contend with a shortage of players at the opening kickoff. Since one of his players arrived late during warmups, Mayora invoked a mandatory rule stating a tardy player has to sit out the first 15 minutes of the game.

“I had 11, but one of them came really late,” Mayora said. “I have a rule, if anyone comes after warmup, you’re benched.”

KIPP Esperanza lost that season opener 1-0, and fell two days later, again to Eastside College Prep, in the Dec. 5 home opener. The Eagles at least got on the board in the that one, a 4-1 loss, with a goal from sophomore Helean Carranza. Eight days later, on Friday, Dec. 13, Carranza and freshman Valeria Torres each scored in a 2-0 win over East Palo Alto Academy.

“I was surprised, to tell you the truth,” Mayora said of the win. “But at the same time, the girls do work hard when they show up at the field. ... They do hustle.”

Even more surprising, the Eagles had 12 players on roster during the victory. Now, if only Mayora could get all those players on the field for practice every day. On an average day, he has no more than six players at practice. And with the current winter break, it’s even less than that; at Monday’s practice, only two players showed up — junior Alondra Hernandez and sophomore Paola Gonzalez.

“I’m still optimistic, and I’m hoping the team gets better when it comes back to school,” Mayora said.

That optimism has Mayora already thinking of the future. KIPP Esperanza has just two seniors on roster in Wendy Gomez and Adileny Alonso. A majority of the current lineup is underclassmen.

“There’s two seniors only, and the other ones are freshmen and sophomores,” Mayora said, “so, in my heart, I’m thinking I’ll come back here next year because they’re a young team.”