Familiar face, fresh approach
Cernicek’s return to Los Alamos marked by high spirits — and wins
Sometimes the freshest perspective comes from the most familiar places.
When it comes to the Los Alamos girls soccer team, the view has never been better than the one provided this season by new head coach Ann Cernicek and her extended staff. It’s through Cernicek that the Lady Hilltoppers are getting a breath of fresh air after reaching the Class 5A state semifinals last year and the title game the year before that.
The team started its season 4-0, including a win over nemesis Albuquerque St. Pius X. The Lady Sartans ended Los Alamos’ season each of the last two years. Up next is a trip to the Albuquerque Academy Invitational this
weekend, the latest step in a process that’s already beginning to pay dividends.
“It’s like getting a fresh approach to the same material you might be getting in class,” Cernicek said. “If you get excited about new course work, the entire class becomes fun and exciting again. You’re not really covering anything new but the way you approach it makes it seem that way. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
Exactly what is fresh is a mystery to Cernicek. She wasn’t around the team much during the previous coach’s tenure, so everything she does — from halftime speeches to drills in practice — is winning over the players and changing the culture for the Lady Hilltoppers.
The fact that it’s working so well should come as no surprise to anyone in Los Alamos.
Cernicek’s family is as synonymous with soccer and its long-term health as anyone living in the Jemez Mountains. She was the school’s boys soccer coach from 1995-2005, leading the Hilltoppers to the title match twice.
Before that, her father helped nurture the sport’s progress through years of volunteer coaching. Ever since it has been a collection of family members ranging from Cernicek and her sister to the pair’s children.
She left the boys program when her job with Los Alamos National Laboratory took her to the nation’s capital and a contract with the Pentagon from 2006-11. She spent the last four years in the Beltway as the girls’ soccer coach at Washington-Lee High School in
Arlington, Va.
She led the Generals out of obscurity, putting the program on a parallel platform alongside its three local rivals. The school’s enrollment was roughly 2,500 students, making it as large as New Mexico’s biggest Class 6A schools.
She returned to Los Alamos that year and watched her daughters compete for the Lady Hilltoppers, but returned to the Pentagon in 2015 to continue her work for global security through her affiliation with LANL. Only recently did she move back to New Mexico, perhaps this time for good.
“It’s such a relief to have that contrast between work and the sport,” she said. “It’s always fun to go to the field after a long day doing what we do. Just being around the game is so refreshing.”
Cernicek’s staff includes a former high school teammate of hers, Erika Leibrecht. The pair often stand side-by-side discussing strategy near the bench.
Another of the assistants is a fellow former Lady Hilltopper, Jessica Sutherland.
Her father, Jiri Kubicek, is the most successful girls soccer coach in school history. He led the program to nine state championship appearances, winning two.
“It’s a different look in terms of staff and how we do things as a group,” Cernicek said. “The great challenge with coaching a high school team as opposed to a club is you only get three months to build something. All these girls share is a zip code, so you don’t have a lot of time to paint the picture.”
In that regard, the players have made the coaching staff ’s job that much easier. The practices are structured and upbeat while the games are stress-free zones as much as possible. Even in a recent upset loss to St. Michael’s, the players recognized what was happening and didn’t start pointing fingers instead of coming unglued as the game slipped away.
It’s that process that makes Cernicek realize that maybe the Lady Hilltoppers on onto something bigger than a nice, shiny record come playoff time.
“One thing I’ve noticed about the difference between coaching boys and girls,” she said, “is boys are more hierarchical as far as the makeup of the team. Girls … can be more focused as a group and more team-oriented at times. I wouldn’t say they’re more in tune with the social aspect of the game but they do tend to pull together faster for the good of the team.”
That kind of depth when characterizing the team dynamic is certainly part of the fresh start Cernicek and her staff brings to the Lady Hilltoppers. With another two months to go, it seems the sky is the limit for an old team with a new approach.