In the words of their coach, Niki Donaldson, Sobrato's field hockey players said their team is like family.
Which is why they couldn't sit pat two weeks ago after Donaldson's two pets, a cat and a dog, died over the course of three days. Their second-year coach reported to fall camp with a heavy heart but was greeted with a small gift - Annie, a chocolate Labrador puppy.
Named in honor of Ann Sobrato High School, Annie was given to Donaldson by her assistant coaches, former players Megan Rotter and Casey Post.
"They came up to me and asked, 'if I could have any dog, what would it be?'" Donaldson recalled. "I told them a girl chocolate Lab. I didn't think they'd get one for me! It was a total surprise."
Rotter and Post had organized a covert fundraiser with the current Lady Bulldogs. It didn't take long for them to reach their goal.
"We wanted to do something for her," senior defenseman Sarina Santiago said. "It was fun to do that."
It wasn't the first time Donaldson has been lifted by her players. She recalled last fall when her division Coach of the Year accolade became the focal point of the team's end-of-the-season banquet. Donaldson won the award by unanimous decision.
"I didn't make it a big deal, but they did," she said. "The parents made it a big deal, too. They had this huge bouquet of balloons and flowers for me - it was really cute.
"To me, stuff like this really shows that I'm not just a coach to them. We're very close. We're a close family. I wanted to maintain that coming into this year and I think we did."
Donaldson and her players aptly called this year's batch of Bulldogs the "new team." The 2007 squad graduated six players, including respective first- and second-team all-leaguers Post and Rotter, but returned the same team chemistry - along with eight varsity veterans.
"Last season, we had a lot of the same girls back," center-midfielder Lindsey Van Keulen said. "With all of our teams, it's been the same girls. This is the first new team we've had.
"We still feel like a family. We stress that. When we see each other later in the year, it feels like the season never ended."
Sobrato's goal - to do better than the year before - hasn't changed. The 2007 Bulldogs finished fourth in the Blossom Valley Athletic League West Valley Division with a program-best 4-6-2 league mark and 5-8-2 record overall. That included the program's closest loss to Live Oak yet.
"Every year we get closer to beating them!" said Donaldson, who played for the Acorns during her prep years. "The deficit keeps getting smaller. Last year, we felt like we had them, but they ended up winning 5-0. The first time we played, they won 22-0."
The two Morgan Hill rivals meet in nonleague play Sept. 11 at Live Oak High School. Donaldson is looking ahead to much more, though.
"We've progressed each year, and we have a good group that keep that going," she said. "They're fast and strong. We're going to win a lot of games this season."
The right pieces appear to be in place. Sobrato returns its second-leading scorer from 2007 in Jenn Tran, plus a second-team all-league honoree in Santiago and the reigning division Junior of the Year in Van Keulen. Donaldson expects big things from them and her other veterans, including seniors Hallie Kiernan, Alisa Devlin and Christine Faulk; and juniors Krista Cavanaugh and Brianna Sugimoto.
"We want to be the best team the school has had," Santiago said.
Kristin Wallash is being groomed as the Bulldogs' new goalkeeper and will get plenty of guidance from Post, who started last year.
Wallash and her sister, Briana, are one of two sets of twins on the team, joining Krista and Andrea Cavanaugh.
"Like I said," Donaldson laughed. "It's family."
Scott J. Adams Scott J. Adams covers Morgan Hill sports for South Valley Newspapers. Send him an email or call him at 779-4106.
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