Go ahead and catch Shauna Fuentez, if you can.
That might look easy when you see this senior, who stands an inch more than 5 feet tall and weighs a gossamer 100 pounds.
And that may sound easy when you think of her team, Ranum, which plays in the Skyline League – a mishmash of Class 5A and 4A teams not known for their soccer.
And that may even seem easy when you consider Fuentez plays as a central midfielder rather than up top as a striker.
Go ahead and think all those things, but you’d be wrong.
Fuentez leads 4A and the state this season with 37 goals and 10 assists and has bagged a staggering 81 goals in her four varsity seasons with the Raiders (6-4-1).
“It’s pretty neat,” Fuentez says.
OK, so she’s not one to gush about her accolades, but Fuentez is hoping her goals and the general improvement of the young Ranum squad will at least garner some deserved attention.
By all accounts, Fuentez is a scrapper. Teams have learned to focus on her, but she still manages to bust her way through (or around) the defenders and leave them complaining about trying to mark No. 6.
Twice this season Fuentez has scored six goals in a game and twice she has bagged five, most recently in a 7-3 nonleague victory April 17 over Englewood.
Although Fuentez has led the Raiders in scoring each season, Pirates coach Paul Edmondson was wondering where Ranum coach Robert Pablo had found this nimble bulldog.
“We’ve been playing Ranum for a lot of years and we have never lost to Ranum, and that loss was hard to take,” Edmondson said. “That girl pretty much put them on her shoulders.”
Pablo has done everything but stand on his head to get other people to see that.
“That’s just her,” he says, “as an athlete and as a person.”
Fuentez has a 3.4 grade-point average and is a part of the rigorous International Baccalaureate program at Ranum. She is involved in community service and has been scouted by Metro State.
“The program is getting better and better, that’s what Shauna is doing, she’s promoting not just herself, but the program,” Pablo said.
“That’s just Shauna.”
