Lake View's perfect formula to success leads them to third consecutive district title

God, family, soccer and bleached blonde hair.

The combination of those four ingredients from Lake View boys soccer coach Kyle Jones created the perfect recipe for success as the Chiefs claimed their third-straight district title as they take a 21-1 overall record and 14-0 district mark into the playoffs.

While Jones admitted there are fewer blondes than usual this year, the first three-quarters of the mantra still permeates through Lake View’s locker room.

“If we put God first everything else falls into place,” Jones said. “God, family, soccer — that’s what we’ve always said here, and the boys love it.”

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Everything will fall into place

Jones, who is brandishing long hair instead of a bleached look this year, is in his seventh season as the head coach. He inherited a program that finished 5-10-1 in 2018 and had a tough first couple of years finishing with a combined record of 11-27. He started to turn things around in 2020 finishing the season 15-7-2 and claiming his first district title as head coach.

“The past couple of years I’ve shifted my thinking and the way that I approach things and everything that I follow is now Bible-related,” Jones said. “Everything that we talk about, and we go over is through the Bible… All the lessons that are in the Bible we can apply to sports, and we can apply to life, and that’s helped tremendously.”

While the team does plenty of bonding playing on the field together, Jones said the team attends church on Sundays and Wednesdays. To help team camaraderie further, Jones helped create Lake View’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes which meets every other week.

“I feel like that’s who Kyle Jones is as a person,” said senior Ace Perez, one of the players donning the bleached look. “Every day after practice we’ll get a quote and it’s usually something that’s going on in our lives either generally or specific to one person. But listening to those words, there are times where you hear him in the back of your head. So, just constantly listening to him and taking what he says and applying it I feel has been a very helpful thing.”

Jones’ authenticity as a person and coach helped the Lake View boys soccer team improve each year culminating in back-to-back seasons with a combined 41-1-2 record and an increase in the program's attendance to 45 students across a junior varsity and varsity team.

“I’d say there is a 95% return rate till they graduate,” Jones said. “(The athletes) like to win. They like to be successful. They like the discipline and structure that we have in our program.”

Team success

Lake View’s structure, discipline and growth allow its athletes to play fast, which in turn helps them run a high-press style of offense and defense.

By pressing the opposing team, the Chiefs trio of forwards Elvis Koech, Giovanni Mendoza and Sterling Gray combined for 48 of the teams' 107 total goals this season. Despite constant pressure from the forwards and middle field players on offense, the Chiefs' defense did not give up more than seven goals across 14 District 7-4A games this season.

“It’s not the easiest for 80 minutes to be full sprinting,” Perez said. “But you see the success we have with it, and while it’s hard to endure, at the same time it works. It’s beneficial. We noticed last year that maybe if we just had a couple more (substitutes) on the field every now and again that we could keep that intensity up.”

As the winning became more frequent for the Chiefs, their support from the community also grew.

“I remember my sophomore year it didn’t seem like a great deal of people were going to our games,” Perez said. “But throughout last year, we started to get a bigger fan base, and toward the end of the year we had a pretty consistent crowd, which is something we hadn’t seen before.”

With the success in the regular season, the Chiefs look to find more success in the postseason after they were upset in last year’s bi-district match 4-2 to El Paso Riverside. This season, Lake View has another opportunity to make a deep playoff run starting with its first-round matchup against El Paso Austin at 3 p.m. on March 26 in Midland.

“We want to go all the way,” sophomore Evan Gallegos said. “We want to make a far run in the playoffs and do our best.”

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This article originally appeared on San Angelo Standard-Times: Lake View boys soccer builds success through faith, family and soccer