April 17, 2009

· SCHOOL: De La Salle

· TENURE: Seven seasons

· THE STORY: Best known for coaching a defensive-minded club, head coach Brian Voltattorni and his staff took a look at the personnel for the 2009 season and realized it was time for a change.

"We've been a defensive-minded team for so long and we take a lot of pride in that," Voltattorni said. "But we had to change our style. As a staff, we talked about our team heading into a new league, the players we had, so we made the change."

The Spartans became an attacking team, leading to nearly three goals a game and an undefeated run in their first year in the hyper-competitive East Bay Athletic League, going 23-1-1, winning the league and an North Coast Section 3A title. DLS won the NCS title 1-0 in overtime of the championship game with San Ramon Valley on a goal by Diablo FC veteran Garrett Biel. Diablo FC goalkeeper Chris Holm was in the nets for the shutout. Overall, 13 players from our club were on the championship squad.

"We had depth in certain positions and we knew we could play a fast-paced game," Voltattorni said. "Any other year we have kids that play 90 percent of the time, but this year, if we lost a player for a week here and there, we were going to be OK.

"With our depth, we could also afford to give players more breaks because changing our formation brought in a different element in attacking and defending. We defended as a unit."

It's one thing to have good players and a lot of depth, but it's another to get those players to buy into the system.

"I think we give him all the respect in the world and he deserves it," senior defender Dominic Daley said.

"He and our assistant coaches Derricke Brown and Mario Silva dedicated a lot of hours to our program and it wouldn`t have been the same experience without them."

Voltattorni also acknowledged that he couldn't have done it without Brown and Silva, and no matter what, they went to the field on the same page.

· QUOTABLE: "This was a very special team and one of the best we've had. When this senior class came in as freshmen, we knew we had something." - Voltattorni

Reprinted from Contra Costa Times