Performance: Holland's Jose Penaloza
November 9, 2017
Jose Penaloza
Holland Soccer – Senior
Penaloza, a four-year varsity starting forward, averaged more than a point per game during the Division 2 tournament to help Holland claim its first MHSAA Finals championship. He scored his final high school goal in the Dutch’s 3-0 win over East Lansing in Saturday’s championship match to earn the Michigan Army National Guard “Performance of the Week.”
An all-stater as a junior – when he scored 26 goals – Penaloza missed 10 games over five weeks this season after suffering a right knee sprain in his team’s first home game against rival Holland Christian. But his scoring touch was fully returned by playoff time. He ended the season with eight goals and nine assists, but with six goals and four of those assists over seven postseason games. Holland was one of three first-time champions at this year’s Finals, and has become known locally over the last few seasons for breaking team huddles with a “Los Dutch” shout – a unifying nod to the various ethnicities of its players. Penaloza – a fan of Real Madrid and Pumas of the Mexican league – moved to Holland from California in sixth grade and didn’t play soccer at his new school until friends got him to come out in eighth grade. He joined the high school varsity a year later as a freshman and four years later capped his career with 40 goals and 27 assists.
As part of his school work, Penaloza attends classes in auto body repair at the Careerline Tech Center in Holland. He had been focused on following that career path, but of late he’s begun considering as well studying entrepreneurship and playing soccer at the college level – with an eye on potentially starting a business after school is done. He said he enjoys hands-on work and being part of the before-and-after process of auto body repair – even as he excels in doing damage to opponents’ chances on the soccer field with his feet.
Coach Greg Ceithaml said: “Jose Penaloza is one of the hardest working players I know, making his success well-earned. He plays with great emotion, and his passion is contagious. I was very upset to see his season truncated by injury, but his persistence and dedication to return to the pitch were inspiring. I was very happy to see him contribute to the team's ultimate success in winning a state championship.”
Performance Point: “It was a feeling that I probably won’t ever be able to describe,” Penaloza said of his championship match goal. “I felt like as soon as I kicked it in it was just such a relief to our team. It gave us the confidence for the whole game. … I feel like once they see me going, that it gives them motivation. As soon as I score, it’s a feeling like, ‘He’s in this game. We’ve got to pick up ours and just do the best to keep that going.’ If I score, they feel like, ‘We’re doing really good. Let’s keep it up. We can do more.’”
Coming back strong: “Having such a great year last year gave me so much more motivation to keep going this year. I wanted to do as much as possible, make everything I could. And then getting hurt gave me a step back. I felt like everything was over at that point. (But) I took my injury really seriously. I did everything I had to … as soon as they gave me treatments and what to do, I did them. It was just more motivation to me to get back on the field and do what I do, what I love best.”
Seen from the sidelines: “Our reaction time, how we start the game, how we react after we or the other team scores. I was just seeing small points (watching while I was injured) where we can increase just by simply talking with our team – some small things we can do to get better. I witnessed it myself. I saw it through my teammates, so once I got back I was like, I can’t be doing what they’re doing. To have a change, you’ve got to be the change. … Almost daily, they were telling me like, ‘Hey, we need you back’ or ‘We wish you were back already. Why can’t you be back?’ So it was giving me motivation to come back. Once I got the news that I was playing, they were really excited about it.”
Great expectations fulfilled: “My class, eighth grade year, we went undefeated. We didn’t have every player we did our senior year, but we picked up some very talented players that helped us through it. When we were eighth graders and went undefeated, we were like, ‘We’re going to win state.’ Our junior year we made it to Regional Finals, so we were kinda expected to make it at least that far this year. And we all had it in mind that we’re not just going to make it this far to end where we did last year, so it gave us more motivation to keep going. The next thing we knew, we were in the state finals.”
Shout out to Los Dutch: “It was just something to get us going. The fact that for so many years, we just said ‘Dutch.’ And then we started saying we’re not just one race; we’re more than one. So when we say ‘Los Dutch,’ I feel like every time we said it, it just brought us together, that we acknowledge all the different races and yeah, we didn’t really care about it. It just brought us together even more. … (To my teammates:) We made it. We’re state champs.”
- Geoff Kimmerly, Second Half editor
Every week during the 2017-18 school year, Second Half and the Michigan Army National Guard will recognize a “Performance of the Week" from among the MHSAA's 750 member high schools.
The Michigan Army National Guard provides trained and ready forces in support of the National Military Strategy, and responds as needed to state, local, and regional emergencies to ensure peace, order, and public safety. The Guard adds value to our communities through continuous interaction. National Guard soldiers are part of the local community. Guardsmen typically train one weekend per month and two weeks in the summer. This training maintains readiness when needed, be it either to defend our nation's freedom or protect lives and property of Michigan citizens during a local natural disaster.
Previous 2017-18 honorees:
November 2: Karenna Duffey, Macomb L'Anse Creuse North cross country - Read
October 26: Anika Dy, Traverse City Central golf - Read
October 19: Andrew Zhang, Bloomfield Hills tennis - Read
October 12: Nolan Fugate, Grand Rapids Catholic Central football - Read
October 5: Marissa Ackerman, Munising tennis - Read
September 28: Minh Le, Portage Central soccer - Read
September 21: Olivia Theis, Lansing Catholic cross country - Read
September 14: Maddy Chinn, Pontiac Notre Dame Prep volleyball - Read
PHOTOS: (Top) Holland's Jose Penaloza controls the ball in the midfield during Saturday's Division 2 Final. (Middle) Penaloza is introduced before the championship match.
Gladwin Soars to 55 Straight League Wins
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
August 28, 2019
Erik Seebeck was a manager for the Gladwin boys soccer team in 2015 when it advanced to the MHSAA Division 3 Semifinals.
That team and its postseason run made quite an impression on the then-eighth grader.
“It was a good experience. I really enjoyed it,” said Seebeck, now a senior sweeper and captain for the Flying Gs. “I learned a lot from being around them and watching how they all responded even when they were down – just never giving up and always giving their all.”
That 2015 team gave Seebeck – and the Gladwin soccer program – something else: the start of what is now a 55-match conference win streak. Gladwin has not lost a Northern Michigan Soccer League game since the conference tournament in 2014.
“We like to set goals at the beginning of the season, and we like to talk about where we want to reach,” Seebeck said. “We want to keep this streak going. We have lots of talent this year, and we’re not having a drop off. We’ve had guys step up and fill the seniors’ positions. We talked over our goals, and we kind of wanted to keep that continuing, to see how far we could make it on that streak.”
Gladwin, a member of the Jack Pine Conference in its other sports, competes in the South division of the NMSL. The league includes schools as far north as Cheboygan and as far west as Big Rapids Crossroads.
Gladwin’s streak includes four straight victories in the league’s conference tournament, which consists of the top two teams from each division at the end of the season.
“We try not to dwell on it too much, but it’s kind of a fun thing for some of the kids,” Gladwin coach Jerome Smalley said. “The graduating class of last year, we had players that played on varsity all four years, and they never lost in the conference. There are some good teams in our conference, and some teams that would really like to end this. But we try not to dwell on it too much.”
This season, Gladwin is off to a 7-0-1 start, which has included 7-0 and 8-0 conference wins against Clare and Big Rapids Crossroads, respectively.
Jonathan Grijalva, a senior forward and captain who is in his third year on the Gladwin varsity team, admitted there’s some pressure that comes along with the streak, but added that it doesn’t define the team.
“Obviously we’d like to keep that going, and there is pride there,” Grijalva said. “But if it ended, I don’t think we’d be horribly upset, because we’re a successful team. And even if we didn’t keep that record going, we just like to have fun, too.”
This year’s team has built another streak all its own, not having allowed a goal through its first eight matches. While the Flying Gs are having no problem putting the ball in the net, having scored 37 goals, Smalley said the strength of the team is its defense and the collective effort the entire team puts into keeping the ball out of the net.
“Our entire team is playing defense,” Seebeck said. “Everybody is getting back, and everybody is helping out on defense. Our four guys in the back (Seebeck, Wilson Bragg, Cal Woodbury and Kurt Landenberger), we’re all communicating great and letting each other know what we have to do. Our midfield is coming back and covering those give and gos. That helps tremendously when all of your team comes back to help on defense.”
The hope now for Gladwin is that this early success on both sides of the field can translate to success not just through the regular season, but into the postseason as well. Because while the Flying Gs have not lost a conference game since 2014, they also haven’t advanced beyond the District tournament since 2015.
In 2016, Gladwin lost 1-0 in the District Semifinal against Tawas. In 2017, it lost 2-1 in the District Semifinal against NMSL North member Ogemaw Heights. And in 2018, Gladwin again lost to Ogemaw Heights, this time in a shootout in the District Final one week after the Flying Gs had claimed the conference crown with a shootout win against Ogemaw.
“The postseason hasn’t been as kind to us as the regular season,” Smalley said.
In order to try and change that, Smalley said he has attempted to beef up the nonconference schedule throughout the years. This past weekend, Gladwin won the Alma Tournament, defeating the hosts, as well as Birch Run, while playing to a scoreless draw against Big Rapids.
“Close games definitely put things into perspective for everybody,” Seebeck said. “We were in the Alma Tournament, and we played Big Rapids and played them to a 0-0 tie, and they had some good players and good passing that kind of opened up to some of our guys what very skilled teams are going to look like when we go into the postseason. It definitely shows you what your limits are.”
There’s a belief among the players that this year’s team can end the recent postseason woes and hopefully catch up to the 2015 team that set them on their current path.
“I’m hoping we can go to state,” said Landenberger, a senior stopper. “I think we can do it; we just have to work together and try our hardest. It’s not going to be easy by any stretch, but I think we can do it.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Gladwin's Jonathan Grijalva (14) works to deflect the ball away from an opponent. (Middle) The Flying Gs celebrate their Alma Tournament championship this month. (Top photo by Max McDonald/Gladwin County Record. Middle courtesy of the Gladwin boys soccer program.)