Redwood High School’s varsity soccer team clinched the 2025 Sunkist Lindsay Showcase victory through focused practices, overcoming challenges, and key player performances, ultimately avenging a previous loss against the Lindsay Cardinals and boosting their confidence.
By: Abigail Zapata
Redwood High School’s varsity soccer team triumphantly seized the 2025 Sunkist Lindsay Showcase title, overcoming adversity and avenging a past defeat against the Lindsay Cardinals.
Whether athletes believe it or not, a good quality practice is the key to having a successful tournament.
Sebastian Montti, ‘28, said how the team, “just had a few good days of practice and just stayed focused in those practices leading up to the tournament.”
Montti mentioned how the team is really good at entering the games locked in and focused, however when it comes to the second half, they start to slow down.
Coming out of the tournament, the boys only grew stronger.
Montti said, “I just think we did a lot better, like staying focused in the final minutes of the halves because sometimes we kind of just let off the gas a little so we just did a better job staying focused.”
At the end of the tournament, the boys had one more team to beat, and it was none other than the Lindsay Cardinals.
The team that knocked Redwood out of the Division 2 CIF Central Section Championship Semifinals.
Some star moments being Devin Calvo, ‘27 scoring a goal in the last minute of the finals, Jared Guzman, ‘27, contributing the win in the semifinals by scoring, and the team finishing off the Lindsay game with a 1.6 team scoring average.
Guzman talked about how rewarding it felt beating Lindsay to win the championship.
“It was a good feeling like, we’ve been waiting for this moment to beat Lindsay and get our get back,” said Guzman.
Hunter Vargas, ‘27, mentioned how the weeks leading up to the tournament were a bit rough, losing and tying to two teams they should have beaten.
Although not pretty, the guys were still able to come out on top with a lot more confidence on the field, proving that they are a top team.
Vargas said, “Our morale was pretty down going into the tournament, but ever since we won that, we’ve gotten a winning streak and we have just been playing much better.”
All three players mentioned how the team was informed at the very last minute that they were going to be competing on Saturday.
Stepping onto the field with only 15 minute warmup and their fingers crossed, the team managed to not only pull out a win, but a crazy memory they can look back on.
Although it was tough having to go into the game cold, it truly did help the team grow as a whole.
“We still kind of joke about it right now how crazy it was that we won even showing up 30 minutes before game time, so we just kind of grew closer facing those adversities together.”
Hunter Vargas, ’27
Abigail Zapata
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