Emerald Ridge won first league soccer title this spring. Midfielder Pineda was team’s heartbeat

The relative chaos of the past year changed the trajectory of Christian Pineda’s immediate future.

For sure, there were highs.

Pineda graduated from Emerald Ridge High this past week. Just a month ago or so, the senior midfielder led the Jaguars to their first-ever boys soccer title in the Class 4A South Puget Sound League.

“Part of the dynamic, there’s got to be some sort of motivation to get what you want,” Emerald Ridge coach Steve Aguilar said. “When we asked, the overwhelming reaction was, we want to win it all. But there was no ‘all.’ So we had the boys fill out a card to find out what ‘all’ was. They told us, whatever the end is, we want to win it.”

Those cards defined the end in different ways: having a ‘clean sheet’ (shutout), beating Puyallup for the first time in ages, an undefeated season, a league title, scoring the most goals ever for an Emerald Ridge team.

“It was them wanting ‘it,’” Aguilar said. “Whatever ‘it’ was. It was nice to let them earn it themselves. They just played for each other. They won it together.”

Emerald Ridge went 8-1. The Jaguars’ only loss was an early-season, last-second loss to Puyallup. They would beat the Vikings later in the schedule before taking down Gig Harbor in the SPSL crossover title game.

Then there was the other side.

“Christian was the spearhead of that,” Aguilar said. “And it was a success because Christian was the leader.”

The buildup to Emerald Ridge’s 2021 success actually began two years ago. That’s when Pineda stepped on campus just before the end of his sophomore year.

Though Pineda grew up in the Puyallup district, he’d spent almost the first two years of high school as a member of the Sounders Academy, where he schooled and developed as a soccer player alongside others such as Danny Leyva, who made his Sounders FC debut that same summer in 2019 that Pineda was released and came back to Emerald Ridge.

“The Sounders scouted me as an attacking player,” Pineda said. “At first I thought, ‘This is my way to go pro.’ But my second coach turned me into a defender.”

By early 2019, that coach told Pineda he hadn’t developed into a good enough defender to stay in the program, and Pineda was released, the Emerald Ridge midfielder said.

“When I got released, I wanted to go play for another academy,” Pineda said. “But my parents said, ‘Nope, let’s just leave it for now.’”

So Pineda found himself at Emerald Ridge, where he almost immediately introduced himself to Aguilar and told the coach he’d be playing for the Jaguars the next season – as a junior, when most of the college recruiting for soccer takes place.

“You hear from other kids when someone is coming,” Augilar said. “The next thing you know, he’s there.”

Unfortunately for Emerald Ridge and Pineda, so was an impending disaster.

“That stupid Covid – wasted his junior year,” Augilar said.

“There was a moment where I was like, there’s no way this is happening,” Pineda said. “We were playing the next day, on my birthday, Saturday, March 14.”

Pineda lost his entire junior campaign to the Covid-19 pandemic. The ramifications continue to this day.

Coupled with the NCAA’s decision to grant an extra year to anyone already playing sports at a college or university, college offers evaporated. Schools that had been high on Pineda, like Washington where he’d attended clinics, stopped calling.

But other avenues finally presented themselves.

His father, Moses Pineda, had played soccer during his school days in Mexico. He’d become friends with a former Liga MX Academy player named Jose Ramos.

After Sounders FC released Pineda, he started to train with Ramos, who in turn contacted Liga MX Academy Chivas (Guadalajara, Jalisco) about Christian. The result, assuming Pineda is fully recovered from a right foot injury that he played on most of the high school season and that landed him in a boot for two weeks, is an opportunity to go to Mexico and enroll with the Chivas academy.

“Also right now, I have PLU as an option, too,” Pineda said. “My goal is to train with Jose, then go to Mexico just to learn, and if they don’t choose me, I can come home (to PLU).”

What Pineda already had learned, with the Sounders program, he brought to Emerald Ridge. As his senior season approached, he started to implement those lessons for himself and his new teammates.

“Before the season started, I asked the guys how the games feel,” Pineda said. “All these guys said everybody plays long balls, almost kickball. We are not going to be that team.”

Pineda’s approach helped Emerald Ridge blossom.

Personally, he scored four goals and had six assists. He wasn’t the team’s leading scorer – junior Zane May got that honor with 11 goals – but he was recognized as the SPSL offensive player of the year before being named the News Tribune’s All-Area Player of the Year.

“Christian brought that intensity of competition,” Aguilar said. “Nobody took him off the ball, ever. But he wasn’t trying to be everything. When the ball was at Christian’s feet, he’s going to find the right guy to get it to.”

“For me, even as a little kid, I liked creating the plays,” Pineda said. “Everybody wants to look at who scored. I think people should pay more attention to the buildup. I’ve always looked at the bigger picture, seen the game that way.”

Because of that, Pineda also knows that his Emerald Ridge experience is simply another step in his own buildup.

“I’m going to push myself,” Pineda said. “I’m going to get bigger, then play in college and maybe D-I. Everybody has always seen me going pro. I’d like to go pro.”

This story was originally published June 10, 2021 at 5:00 AM.