GAINESVILLE — There is hardly a top 10 in the current high school soccer rankings not chocked with northeast Georgia talent.
Most of the usual suspects are there -- powers like Gainesville, Johnson and East Hall boys, along with the Flowery Branch, Lumpkin County and Dawson County girls. And yet the one area team sitting No. 1 may come as a bit of a surprise.
The Chestatee boys soccer program has almost always been solid -- last year the War Eagles reached the Class 4A Sweet 16.
This season, however, Chestatee is making a run at "special."
Already 10-0 on the campaign, the War Eagles have surged into the Class 4A No. 1 ranking -- in front of fellow Region 7-AAAA rivals and traditional powers Blessed Trinity (No. 2) and Marist (No. 3). Chestatee already has a 2-1 win over the Titans and will play host to Marist on Tuesday.
Exciting times to say the least -- and yet coach Michael Herrin says that a focused, and hard-working group is taking it all in stride.
"It's nice that the guys are getting recognized; it's proof of their efforts and labels," Herrin noted of the No. 1 spot in Class AAAA. "At the same time it's humbling and we talk to them all the time about what it was like playing top-ranked teams in the past and how great it was to beat them. Now we've got the target on our backs, and it gets bigger with each win. But we've got good senior leadership and a deep bench. And they have a total team mentality."
In a strange way, it may help that Chestatee has spent much of the campaign battling adversity -- at least where the starting line-up is concerned. For instead of focusing on successes, the War Eagles must focus on overcoming potential stumbling blocks.
"I don't think we've had a consistent starting 11 all season," Herrin said. "Whether it's injury, flu or someone having a family situation come up that they had to attend to, we've had to adopt a next-man-up mentality. This year we just have a lot of hungry guys, and they're really competing with each other to prove they're worthy of more playing time."
With leading scorer Uriel Rocha sidelined with a broken collar bone -- suffered Feb. 20 in a 5-0 defeat of Riverside Military -- the War Eagles are still finding the back of the net, notching 16 goals in the five matches since.
Meanwhile, the Chestatee defense has been stout all season, yielding just five goals and producing six shutouts.
"Guys like Austin Manzo have been dynamic in whatever role we've asked him to play," said Herrin, who starts five seniors, with six on the roster. "And Mateus Jenings has blossomed and had some real success this season.
"We didn't graduate any starters from last season's team that reached the second round (of the playoffs). And five (of the eight) losses we suffered last year only came by one goal, so we knew we were close, and that bred some confidence. That's been huge this season."
Forced into playing four different starting formations -- thanks to a rotation of missing players -- Chestatee keeps finding success.
"We talk about respecting the game and respecting the opponent," Herrin said. "And we do that by focusing on the next game. The Blessed Trinity win was big, but we now we have to look at the next one and go from there. The great thing is the guys seem to be having fun. It's not going to be easy, because everyone's watching because of that ranking. But these guys seem to just be focusing on doing what needs to be done."
Chestatee travels to Class 4A No. 10 Eastside on Friday before playing host to No. 3 Marist on Tuesday.
