Tough as nails
Torres garners The Montor’s All-Area DPOY award
BY HENRY MILLER
STAFF WRITER
Keyla Torres still becomes mildly upset when talking about a 2020-21 soccer match against Edinburg Vela.
“It was not good,” the now La Joya Juarez-Lincoln graduate said. “It made me feel awful.”
The SaberCats easily dismantled the usually battle-ready Huskies 6-0 en route to the District 31-6A title. It was already a down year for JL, and that whacking made it worse.
“They just kept scoring and scoring,” Torres said. “What is going on? We’ve never lost a game this bad.”
This year, the Huskies were back to their uber-aggressive and physical style of play. Some teams would walk onto the field, fear and trepidation already in their eyes before the match started.
Torres was a big part of that.
“We see that from some teams but we try not to be over-confident,” said Torres, who played mostly in goal the previous two years with Juarez-Lincoln, but was a defender her freshman year when the team advanced to the UIL Class 6A state playoffs Sweet 16. “We play like every team is coming with their all against us.”
The Huskies won this past season’s 31-6A title with a 15-1 record. They defeated Vela on the road 1-0 and lost at home 3-2. The Huskies allowed just nine goals in the 16 district matches, scored 62 and totaled 11 shutouts.
“The difference this year is that we were really committed to the season,” Torres said. “The year before we were in COVID and didn’t know what was going to happen, and we knew nobody would come see us.
“Everything changed this year, a lot of people were supporting us and we were more committed. We gave it our all; we gave more than 100% I feel. I just wish we could’ve gone farther.”
A rabid defender who sticks to her marks so tight that sometimes it’s hard to see where the attacker begins and Torres ends, the Texas A&M San Antonio commit says she would use every legal defensive tactic available to her to stop the opponent from scoring.
“I remember one time, it was just me and my goalie, and the girl from the other team got by me while we were running,” Torres said. “I thought about slide tackling her, but then I was worried about getting a foul in the box.”
Still, Torres’ defensive mindset took over. “Whatever turns out, turns out,” she said. “I took out the ball and they didn’t score. She was very (mad).”
While an unapologetic stalwart on defense, Torres also has a leg capable of damaging the opponents’ net as well. The center back scored a dozen goals on the season, most off of penalty kicks and free kicks.
The year almost didn’t happen. Torres said she really didn’t want to go back last year during COVID-19.
“I didn’t really want to play — it’s COVID and it’s not worth it,” Torres said. “But then coach kept calling and calling — ‘When is Keyla gonna come back and play?’ Then I did.”
Even so, she played half of those games in goal, but when head coach Arnoldo Cardenas came calling, looking for a defender, Torres answered.
“I always played defense since I started playing at 5. I liked it a lot,” Torres said. “Then I started playing goalie but coach needed a defender. I told him, ‘I can play it and I’ll try my best.’
“It turned out to be a good position for me and my team.”
