Coach Paula Conway put together a wonderful ceremony to honor the seniors on her La Jolla High field hockey team Nov. 12. I was sorry to miss it, as I came in on the tail end of her comments on each senior as I arrived from my "real" job (I'm a Juvenile Court Schools teacher).
She arranged for a sound system with a microphone and good speakers, which is often overlooked when these events happen. I give her tons of credit just for that. Her spoken comments, which she allowed me to take for use here on my blog, show humor and thought.
As I turned the corner and went down the ramp to the field at Muirlands Middle School, I heard Conway say that goalie Katja Sarain plays seven musical instruments. That alone impressed me (as a person who plays none). I asked her parents about this during the game. Anthony Sarain, who is Katja's softball coach at LJHS in the spring, said she, like he, plays saxophone. She also plays piano, guitar, and a gazillion other instruments. Good work, Katja. Her parents and I had plenty of time to talk during the game, because the Vikings were wailing on the poor University City team, 7-0. To the Centurions' credit, they didn't give up, despite the onslaught.
Katja has been the Vikings' starting goalie for three years. She plans on majoring in architecture, "hopefully at the University of Oregon," according to Conway's notes. She has played softball for 10 years and "enjoys going to the beach and rock-climbing."
Her favorite hockey memory is "being tackled by the team after the double OT win against Cathedral."
An interesting fact about Katja is that she "is 1.3% Neanderthal...which is why she is a good goalkeeper."
Copyright 2014 Ed Piper
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