Chris Boyle|St. Augustine Record
ST. AUGUSTINE— No longer can St. Augustine's boys' soccer team be considered a "free win" on the schedule, in the words of junior midfielder Mason Matos.
On the contrary, the Jackets are yet to taste defeat in the 2021-22 season— opening the campaign on a historic winning run.
St. Augustine improved its record to 7-0 with a comfortable 4-0 win over Mainland Wednesday night, aided by a hat trick from top scorer Diego Barrera. The Jackets' senior class notched nine victories the previous three seasons combined.
"It's huge. We're such an athletic school; you look around and see championship banners up for football, and we've competed in that and basketball. Soccer's never been the big sport here," Jackets third-year coach and 2003 grad Kyle Forson said.
"When I played here, we were very competitive and tried to close the gap on Nease. We just never quite did it, so I think (soccer) got tossed to the wayside a little bit."
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Forson served as an assistant coach in 2018-19 before taking the head job,and could quickly tell things would take a turn for the better. His freshmen possessed talent and, more importantly, commitment.
"We had five, six, maybe seven freshmen on varsity the first year. These 14and 15-year-olds playing against 17and 18-year-olds, they were pissed to be losing— absolutely as mad as could be," Forson said. "I knew the buy-in was there, and these guys were committed to change some things."
First and foremost, the Jackets sought to change the perception of the program locally.
St. Augustine went five years without a win against a fellow St. Johns County public school. The Jackets broke that skid by rallyingfrom a two-goal halftime deficit to edge first-year program Tocoi Creek on Nov. 17.
Two days before Thanksgiving, the Jackets pulled off an attention-grabbing upset of rival Menendez— a regional finalist last season, albeit one that suffered heavy losses due to graduation. It was the first head-to-head win in the series for St. Augustine since 2016.
"The last two years, we had gotten killed. It brought down the demeanor and everything, so we all had the Menendez date marked on our calendars," Matos said."The atmosphere was great, and the boys coming together for that win was absolutely insane."
Forson describes the Jackets as a "defense-first" team, though he prefers a three-back system. Most of the work comes in midfield where players swarm behind the ball to retrieve it and hit opponents on the counter.
Thus far, St. Augustine has conceded only seven goals. Last year, the Jackets allowed 38 — with 13 coming from the penalty spot.
That's because the team hasplenty of confidence in Barrera going forward. The senior, who played club soccer exclusively last winter, already has 15 goals and four assists.
"This is probably the last time I'll play competitively," Barrera said. "I've always had a passion for soccer; it's always been my No. 1 thing growing up. I enjoy competing, and always want to do more and score more goals. It just comes down to making the most of every game because it's going to go quick.
"After February, I'm done playing. I want to score every game so I can look back and remember playing. It's going to be hard to walk away from after 14, 15 years."
Beating Menendez was the first significant accomplishment, Forson said. It's certainly not the only one for this group.
St. Augustine eyes a long-awaited return to the state playoffs. According to Florida High School Athletic Association records, the Jackets' last postseason appearance came in 2007— a 1-0 regional quarterfinal loss to Crystal River.
They compete in an eight-team District 3-6A, which also features local foes Nease and Ponte Vedra.
"We want to be in the state playoffs. We talk about it a lot," Forson said. "We're in one of the toughest— if notthetoughest— districts in the state. When the first set of (MaxPreps) rankings came out, six of the top eight teams in (Class 6A) were in our region.
"We feel like if we can get out of this district and get into the state tournament, we could really make a run.We might surprise some people because we're St. Augustine High School, but I don't think it would be a surprise to us and these guys.
