By Jose Trujillo (@jAy_Ay_T ):
The future looks bright for the Spartans with the young goalkeeper.
We are all born with a deep connection to someone or something..
For San Jose State University sophomore goalkeeper Ana Calero, that connection is with soccer, as the sport has been a literal building block for her family.
“It’s how my parents met, and how my sister and her husband met,” Calero said.
Her family’s love for soccer is what got her to start playing at a young age, and now, the San Jose State women’s soccer team has one of its building blocks in the budding star.
Midway through last season, Ana took over as starting goalkeeper when Paige Simoneau suffered an injury. She went on to finish the season with a 7-4-1 record, making 26 saves and a 1.26 goals against average in 1070:50 minutes across 13 matches while earning Academic All-Mountain West honors. And she accomplished all this as a freshman.
Anas youth and inexperience in Division -1 soccer did not stop her from quickly asserting herself as a one of the most vocal players on the team.
“She is an extremely hard worker and a very good communicator,” said head coach Lauren Hanson. “She has done a great job of helping to organize our backline… that is one key area that I really enjoy.”
Hanson also admires how much the goalkeeper has grown over the last season.
“She has all that experience from last year, so in the rhythm of the game and knowing situations, she has done a fantastic job.” she said.
Evidence of that came during a match against nationally ranked Santa Clara to kick off the season.
“She was clutch, she kept us in the game, like, unreal saves,” said teammate Sabrina Miller.
Even though the Spartans fell short 2-1 in a nail biter, the score does not justify Caleros performance.
“She came up huge, she had four or five big time saves because she was reading off her line… she has done a fantastic job being a shot-stopper for us,” said Hanson.
Caleros success can be attributed to her work ethic and practice.
“She is really committed, I think she takes the extra steps that other players won’t. This summer she was unreal with her fitness, and a lot of goalkeepers don’t have to be as fit as players, but she was training right there with us.” Miller said.
With goals of finishing on top of the Mountain West, and shutting out every team they face, Ana recognizes it is going to take serious training and communication for the Spartans to achieve that.
“All of double days, we did defensive work, one vs one, two vs two, three vs three and up to full matches… so that we can all be in the same page and just work really well together as a strong unit.” Ana said.
Anas commitment and dedication to her craft, along with her leadership can be traced back to her biggest idols: mom and dad.
“They never babied me, they showed me everything I know.” Calero said.
Even though a shutout every game will be an almost impossible goal to accomplish, winning the Mountain West is not. And even if it does not happen this season the Spartans should be excited. They have their building block to make achieving those goals much easier in Ana Calero.