Chu’s Game Biting to Westlake Opponents

Chu on this: If you’re an opponent of the Westlake High girls’ soccer team, you’re likely to take home a bruise or a welt as a souvenir.

Those will come courtesy of Naomi Chu, a hard-charging midfielder who has helped propel the Warriors (12-0-1) to the top of the Marmonte League and The Times’ regional rankings.

Chu has only six goals, but her skill, hustle and physical play energize Westlake and grate on opponents.

“She’s pretty much the most disliked player in this area,” said one coach whose team has played Westlake several times in recent years. “Girls hate to go up against her.”

Chu’s style would blend into the rougher boys’ game but girls’ players, coaches and parents are not accustomed to her hard tackles, full-tilt runs and reckless abandon in the air.

Although she leaves a trail of irritated players in her wake, Chu, an unimposing 5 feet 4, vigorously denies she is a dirty player.

“There are no bad intentions,” Chu said. “I’m playing to get the ball, not the player. And I’ve never done a slide tackle in my life.”

Chu, who has narrowed her college soccer options to Portland, Arizona and Loyola Marymount, competed in softball, basketball and track as a youngster but found her niche in soccer.

Her intensity has earned her a fan in Keith West, a Harvard-Westlake assistant who played at Cal State Northridge, including part of one season with a broken nose.

“She’s not out there to make any friends,” West said. “She’s just fierce and she only plays that way.”

Chu was at her finest in a recent league game with Simi Valley, scoring the winning goal despite being almost comically shadowed by the Pioneers’ Brittney Green.

“I have nothing against anybody but sometimes you’ve got to lose your [defender],” said Chu, who held off Green with hand-checks, elbows and shoves. “Sometimes you have to make them not want to [guard] you.”

*

As it has for much of the season, Granada Hills served notice Tuesday that it is no longer a pushover by tying Birmingham, the region’s top team, 0-0, in a Northwest Valley Conference boys’ game at Granada Hills.

The Highlanders (2-1-4 overall and in conference play) were a combined 2-20-6 the last two seasons, but the rebuilding efforts of third-year Coach Wilson Herrera Sr. are bearing fruit on and off the field.

Herrera, the City Section’s player of the year at Van Nuys in 1975 and 1976, took over a Granada Hills team that was plagued by player indifference and academic ineligibility. But the coach’s warmth and attention to the players’ schoolwork has made an impression.

Highlander practices begin with 30 minutes of homework, with players receiving tutoring from teammates and reporting to Herrera on class progress. Such an arrangement would be greeted with groans on other teams, but Herrera and many of his charges parted ways Tuesday with vigorous hugs.

“I finally got it into their heads that they’ve got to do something in school, to look forward,” Herrera said. “Before, some of them talked about going and working with dad in the factory. Now I’m getting them to think about getting to college and playing there.”

*

While many area coaches participate in drills with their players, Jake Gwin, the Taft boys’ coach, can literally dribble circles around his.

Gwin, 26, a former Taft player who plays professionally, said he expects to sign for a fifth pro season with a team in the Bay Area or Orange County.

Gwin has played in four leagues on seven teams from Milwaukee to Stockton to Leon, Mexico. He hopes to return to Taft in October and become a credentialed teacher.

*

The Chaminade girls may be two-time Southern Section Division III champions, but the Eagles will be all but unrecognizable Saturday when they host Alemany in a Mission League game.

An avalanche of injuries means the Eagles (14-3-1) will field nine first-year starters. Only four players have appeared in every game this season and Coach Mike Evans has temporarily discontinued practices.

“What are we going to practice with six people?” Evans said. “I can’t believe we’ve gotten so far with this hospital ward.”