Sports

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Sports

The Observer | www.theobserver.com & Recreation

By Jim Hague ogsmar@aol.com

Before the 2020 high school soccer season began, no one knew anything about Juan Rojas.

Not Bill Galka, the head coach at Kearny High School. Not his fellow teammates with the Kardinals. Not even Rojas himself.

You see, Rojas, a junior at Kearny, didn’t play soccer for the last two years.

“The first year, I wasn’t in shape,” said Rojas, who came to Kearny from his native Colombia when he was 11 years old. “I wasn’t paying attention to anything. I didn’t want to play soccer. All I wanted to do was play video games.”

As a sophomore, Rojas went back to his native Colombia to live with his father and little sister, while his mother remained in Kearny with his grandparents.

So when Rojas came back to Kearny to begin his junior year, he was unsure about whether he would even make the varsity.

“To be honest, I was really nervous,” Rojas said. “I really didn’t think I’d make the team.”

Rojas had played club soccer for Kearny United/Thistle, but he didn’t know how he would perform for the storied Kearny High program.

Before preseason tryouts began, Galka never saw Rojas play.

“I heard he was a good player,” Galka said. “I met him a couple of times, but I never saw him.” During the preseason, limited this season to only two weeks due to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, Rojas started to make a positive impression.

“He was a very good technical player,” Galka said. “He wasn’t lighting it up, but you slowly could start to see that he could play. He’s good on the ball and gets to the right spots. He also connected well with the others.”

Rojas said that he started to feel better about his status on the team during the preseason.

“After the practices, I started to feel more comfortable,” said Rojas, who didn’t speak a word of English before he arrived in the United States five years ago. “Coach (Galka) gave me a chance and I showed that I could play. Everything just went well from there.”

Did it ever.

Rojas has emerged as one of the best goal scoring threats in the entire state of New Jersey.

He has exploded for 23 goals and has added nine assists in just 12 games.

In the past week, Rojas has scored 10 goals, including an astounding four goals in the Kardinals’ 11-0 win over Fair Lawn in the opening round of the NJSIAA North Jersey Group IV state playoffs Saturday afternoon. Rojas had two goals in each of the prior three games against Clifton (a loss) and Memorial and Dickinson, both victories.

For his efforts, Rojas has been selected as The Observer Athlete of the Week for the past week.

Needless to say, Rojas is surprised by his goal scoring prowess.

“I never thought I could do this,” Rojas said. “When I first got on the team, I was trying to find my way. But Coach Galka and Coach (Scott) Millar taught me a lot of things that helped me. They taught me how to check my back and check for the ball.”

Rojas said that he has developed solid camaraderie with teammate Miguel Rodriguez, a senior who has 13 goals and 13 assists this season.

“Having Miguel as company

Kearny junior forward Juan Rojas.

has really helped me a lot,” Rojas said of the senior. “We have good teamwork together. I don’t want to be the guy who wants to dribble it through everyone.”

Galka is pleased with the way the formerly unknown Rojas has rapidly developed.

“He’s been very good,” Galka said. “I turned to him the other day and asked him how many goals he scored in the game. He said he had four. He scores and you tend to forget that he is the one who scored them. He’s a good finisher. He’s in the box and is able to get the ball from the corners.”

If the Kardinals (10-2) played a full slate of games this season instead of the truncated schedule caused by the COVID, Rojas might

have challenged for the single season goal scoring record set by Michael Millar, the brother of current assistant coach Scott Millar and son of longtime head coach John Millar. Michael Miller, a high school All-American during his days at Kearny, scored 34 goals in 2004.

Rojas will have another year in 2021 to challenge the record.

“He’s a good kid with a good sense of humor,” Galka said. “He enjoys playing. He gets along with the other guys very well. I wish we could have had him for the last two years. He would have been even better.”

Rojas said that he was excited to leave Colombia and come to Kearny five years ago.

“My mom was looking for

Photo by Jim Hague

me to get a better opportunity to go to college,” Rojas said. “That’s my main goal. I want to get a scholarship to go to college. I was excited to come here because it was a brand new start. I had to learn a whole new language. I had to meet new people. My family helped me a lot.”

And now, as the Kardinals move on in the state tournament to face Memorial this week (the game was scheduled for Tuesday at 4 p.m. at Kearny High School), Rojas wants one more thing more than setting a goal scoring record.

“I want us to win the states,” Rojas said.

As long as Rojas keeps finding the back of the net, anything is possible.

JARED Continued from Page 1

man year at center midfield,” Dembowski said. “He would be one of the first ones on the attack for us. He was a big part of our midfield. He made a lot of plays. He made things happen.”

Velazquez also played top level club soccer for the prestigious Ironbound Soccer Club.

So Velazquez was anticipating a solid senior year for the Vikings.

“I figured I could have a good future perhaps playing soccer in college,” Velazquez said. “This was going to be a pretty good opportunity to show the scouts that I could play.”

There wasn’t a conventional preseason this year, due to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. Velazquez’s chance to play for Ironbound also went away due to the virus.

So when preparation for the high school season was delayed until September, Velazquez had to wait his turn.

“I was ready to go,” Velazquez said.

But when practices began in September, Velazquez didn’t feel right.

“I was beginning to feel nauseous all the time,” Velazquez said. “I couldn’t eat at all. It started getting worse. I was afraid to eat anything, because I didn’t like the feeling.”

The discomfort continued for a few weeks.

“I then told my Mom (Lizette) that we had to go to the doctor to see if it was just a stomach virus,” Velazquez said. “I was also going to the bathroom less, making less urine.”

When Velazquez went to the doctor, an initial test proved to be vital.

“My blood pressure skyrocketed,” Velazquez said. “The doctor told me to go to the emergency room right away.”

Velazquez went to the ER at Hackensack University Medical Center to undergo a different blood test.

“An hour later, the doctor told me that there

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Photo by Jim Hague Jared Velazquez holds the one of the Team Jared T-Shirts that were made to help raise money for kidney disease awareness.

was something seriously wrong with my kidneys,” Velazquez said.

The blood test determined that Velazquez was suffering from focal segmental glomerulosclerosis or FSGS. It’s a disease that attacks the tiny filtering units inside the kidneys where blood is cleaned. FSGS is the type of glomerular disease and scarring, also known as sclerosis that eventually renders the kidneys useless.

It’s very rare among teenagers. Velazquez just turned 17. Most FSGS patients are much older and it could very well be a hereditary disease.

Velazquez was tested and it turned out that his form of FSGS is not genetic, so he’s the only one in his immediate family to have it.

Needless to say, the diagnosis floored Velazquez.

“When the doctors told me I was in kidney failure, I just tried to stay strong,” Velazquez said. “I didn’t want to break down, especially not in front of my Mom.”

Velazquez remained hospitalized for a few weeks until his blood pressure was stabilized. He was fitted with a stent in order to receive the dialysis treatment that is required three times a week.

“The kidney doctors at Hackensack have no clue how it all started,” Velazquez said. “Both of my kidneys are really small and are operating at 15 percent capacity. The kidney doctors at Hackensack believe that this had been happening for a long time and it just never showed up in a physical.”

Luis Velazquez, Jared’s father, was stunned when Jared received the diagnosis.

“This threw a monkey wrench into everything,” Luis Velazquez said. “We were all so looking forward to Jared’s college days. He was in the middle of taking college visits and now this.”

One of Jared’s doctors believes that the FSGS could be caused by Jared being born prematurely. Lizzette Velazquez was just a little more than seven months pregnant when Jared was born.

“Maybe his kidneys were not fully developed,” Luis

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