Westmoor boys’ soccer forced to forfeit remainder of season

Monday’s game with Aragon, as well as future games with Capuchino, Sequoia, Half Moon Bay and South City will be forfeited as well.

“I’ve been considering it because I really feel bad for the kids,” Pedemonte said. “Because going into games with nine players, they were getting killed every game. You could see their effort … but my boys were just getting killed.”

Pedemonte said the primary reason for players quitting the team was due to fear of COVID, and parents not wanting their children being exposed on the soccer field.

“We literally had to cancel our whole season because of a COVID scare,” Pedemonte said. “We tried and tried. Most of the season we were playing with nine players.”

The turnout at the beginning of the season was promising, as Westmoor had upwards of 30 boys and 30 girls sign up for the respective teams.

Now, the boys’ team has been disbanded, and the girls’ varsity team — which Pedemonte also coaches — is down to just eight players on roster. He said he hopes the girls’ team, with just three games remaining, will not be forced to cancel its season.

“We only have a week left, so hopefully not,” Pedemonte said.

Currently in his second season as a head coach at the Daly City campus, Pedemonte is still looking for his first win with the Westmoor boys. Last season, also playing shorthanded during the truncated spring campaign, the Rams posted an 0-6 record. Because there was no Peninsula Athletic League girls’ soccer season in the spring of 2020-21, two girls were allowed to play with the Westmoor boys’ team — Victoria Santana and Yuridia Corona — both of whom played at City College of San Francisco this season.

This year the Rams finished with an 0-6 overall mark for games in which they took the field.

Pedemonte took over for former Westmoor head coach Omar Rashid — who retired after coaching soccer at the school since 1989, citing health reasons — for whom he originally served as an assistant coach. Pedemonte previously coached at Jefferson in the late 1980s and early ’90s, and with the boys’ team there won two North Peninsula League championships.

An on-campus employee, Pedemonte said he is optimistic the Westmoor boys’ soccer team will return next season.

“If I keep coaching there, they’ll come back,” Pedemonte said. “Because I have a very young team as well. … I’m sure they’re going to come back next season and then we’ll have some more bodies.”

A campus security guard, Pedemonte has previously worked as a juvenile supervisor with the San Mateo County Probation Department. He comes from a family of law enforcement officers, with a brother who works with the South San Francisco Police Department, along with a sister and cousin who work with the Burlingame Police Department, he said.

“I work [at Westmoor] so I’ll be there every day — make sure they’re staying in school, make sure they’re getting their grades up, and then we’ll probably get going again for next season,” Pedemonte said.