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  • Sunny Hills' Mike Schade is the Register's boys soccer coach...

    Sunny Hills' Mike Schade is the Register's boys soccer coach of the year.

  • Sunny Hills' Mike Schade is the Register's boys soccer coach...

    Sunny Hills' Mike Schade is the Register's boys soccer coach of the year.

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Damian Dottore. Sports. HS Reporter.

// MORE INFORMATION: Associate Mug Shot taken August 24, 2010 : by KATE LUCAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Sunny Hills boys soccer coach Mike Schade likes to come up with a theme to use each season, hoping it can help motivate his players.

He used “no goals allowed” one season, and had the acronym “NGA” stitched on Sunny Hills’ uniforms to drive home his desire to shut out every opponent.

This season, his theme was “unfinished business,” his way of reminding the Lancers about the heartbreak they felt when they lost in the CIF-SS Division 2 semifinals in 2015.

“That was very motivating for us this year,” junior forward Herminio Padilla Jr. said. “We wanted to win CIF from the beginning, and ‘unfinished business’ kept us from getting caught up by distractions. It kept us focused.”

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ALL-COUNTY BOYS SOCCER

• Boys soccer player of the year: Herminio Padilla, Sunny Hills
• All-County boys soccer: First team
• Boys soccer coach of the year: Mike Schade, Sunny Hills
• All-County boys soccer: Second team
• 2015-16 All-CIF boys soccer teams

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The Lancers completed their journey this season by winning a Southern Section championship, the first for the school since 1987. It was also the first title for Schade in his 28 years of coaching boys soccer.

For guiding his team to the title, Schade has been selected the Register’s boys soccer coach of the year.

“It is really important, not for me, but for these guys to be a part of something like that,” Schade said of winning the title. “You work them so hard and you demand so much out of them, going three-plus hours a day six days a week. It is special for them to reach the goal that we have set.”

The Lancers scored 62 goals in 28 games, the second most in school history, and posted 15 shutouts (third most in school history).

“At Sunny Hills, we always say it is not about achieving,” said Schade, who was also selected CIF-SS Division 2 coach of the year. “It is about overachieving, and I think these guys did that.”

The Lancers gave up just 22 goals for a 0.786 goals-against average. They knocked in 30 goals in their 10 Freeway League games and had a 16-game winning streak at one point.

“We know how much work he (Schade) puts in,” Padilla said. “When he is at home, he is still always thinking about how to improve the team. So we were just grateful that we could do this for him.”

Contact the writer: ddottore@ocregister.com