Hot Merits: Heat kicks in awards after playoff season
By NINO CARDENAS
LAREDO MORNING TIMES
The Laredo Heat held an awards banquet Tuesday night at the Laredo National Bank Party Patio capping the successful inaugural 2005 Premier Development League debut.
The Heat wrapped up the season with a 2-0 loss to the El Paso Patriots Saturday night in the Southern Conference championship game.
The Patriots were the Mid-South Division champions.
At the banquet all players received trophies and yellow jerseys with their name stitched on the back.
The organization also expressed its gratitude to all of its employees who helped the season run smoothly, they were all presented with plaques.
A few players received personal awards as voted on by their peers and coaches.
The 2005 most valuable player title went to goalkeeper Ryan Shaughnessy.
The 20-year-old Waco native started all of the Heat's 16 regular season games, accumulating an 8-8 record.
He finished with 75 saves and allowed 1.58 goals per game.
Shaughnessy led the league in minutes played by a goalkeeper with 1,480 and finished eighth in shutouts with four.
Dionisio "Nicho" Infante took home the top offensive player and top goal scorer awards.
He scored eight goals in 11 games and had an assist for a team leading 17 points.
The defensive award went to co-captain Mark Vega, fellow co-captain Jacob Downs received the community involvement award and midfielder Jesus "Chuy" Sanchez was named the team's all-around player, he was the second leading scorer with six.
Nobody expected the Heat (10-8, 30 points) to get as far as they did in their rookie campaign, especially considering a field of 54 teams.
Laredo remained as one of the final eight teams still in contention for the PDL championship when they defeated the Cocoa Expos 2-1, the Southeast Division champs, before falling to El Paso.
"To have beaten one of the top teams in the league (Cocoa Expos) in the opening round of the Southern Conference Tournament, to become one of the top eight teams in the league in our first official season is a testament to the hard work of all the people involved from top to bottom in the organization," Heat Owner and Club President, Shashi Vaswani, said.
They finished the 2005 campaign as runnersup in their Mid-South Division.
"We showed that we belonged against any of the teams. We stopped the 2005 PDL points leader in the Cocoa Expos forward Frederico Moojen," Chief Operating Officer J.J. Vela said.
"The team represented Laredo and themselves well. Overall with all the adversity, the team held really well. The team matured and showed that it can adapt to any situation," Vela added.
Being a developmental league the roster looks to be reshuffled a little bit come next season.
Some players might look to continue their soccer future elsewhere in hopes of climbing the soccer ranks.
Under league guidelines each team can only have eight players over the age of 23 on their roster.
This season they had the max of eight players throughout and by the time next season rolls around players such as Infante, Sanchez and Downs will count against the over 23 age limit.
"That's something we are going to be dealing with in the PDL. We are going to be recruiting and have more tryouts. Hopefully the local kids can see that this is a fruitful experience in that they get to travel and get some soccer exposure," Vela said.
The most important spot to be filled during the offseason is that of the head coach.
Israel Collazo stepped in when Eleazar Jepsen resigned and helped propel the team into the playoffs.
Laredo went 4-2 under his tutelage, including two exhibition games.
"Collazo finished great, he inspired the guys," Vela said.
His name is going to be on the list of possible coaching candidates for the 2006 PDL season.
"After seeing first hand the level of competition in the PDL, I don't think people realize how important this accomplishment is for the future of soccer in the Gateway City," Vaswani said.
"I'm very proud of the guys, we didn't rally have many stars. The guys played with heart and sheer guts and that's how they got in the playoffs. Now we are looking forward to next year."
