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  • Juan Gutierrez helped JSerra to its first CIF championship in...

    Juan Gutierrez helped JSerra to its first CIF championship in any sport.

  • JSerra's Juan Gutierrez had 51 points this season.

    JSerra's Juan Gutierrez had 51 points this season.

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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

Pregame introductions were almost over at St. Margaret’s High when the announcer got to JSerra’s starting junior forward and said, “Number nine …. CR-A-A-A-A-BY!”

That’s it. That’s all he said. Just that one word.

After that CIF SoCal Regional game, one in which Crabby finished with a goal and an assist, a JSerra supporter walked on the field and yelled, “He only needs one name like Pele and Ronaldo and all of the soccer greats.”

There’s no doubt Crabby has got some skills. He is the Register’s 2009-10 boys soccer player of the year. But for one more time at least, he will have to go by his full name – Juan Gutierrez.

So how did he end up with this rather unflattering nickname, which has absolutely nothing to do with soccer by the way? That’s what the kids on the Little Rascals cartoon series called their teacher.

“And that is what I wanted my name to be,” he said. “I think I was about 2 years old at the time. And it just stuck. Now, that is what everyone calls me.”

Well, that and CIF champion. He scored goals in three consecutive postseason games to help lead the Lions to the Southern Section Division 1 title, the first CIF championship for the school in any sport. None of those scores was bigger than the goal he knocked in with 20 minutes to go in the Lions’ quarterfinal match against Esperanza. That evened the score, 1-1. The game eventually went into overtime and then penalty kicks, where JSerra edged the Aztecs, 5-4, to advance to the semis.

Last year, the Lions were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. Gutierrez, however, was not on the field that day, playing instead in Argentina with his Region IV Olympic Development team.

“I felt horrible,” said Gutierrez, who also added five assists during the postseason, including one in the 2-1 Division 1 championship victory over Harvard-Westlake. “I felt like I let the school down. I thought they were going to be fine in that first game.

“But when I came back everyone blamed me. This year, I took it more seriously. Before, it was like high school soccer wasn’t that big of a deal. Now, I just had to prove myself everywhere I went on the field.”

And that he did, scoring at least one goal in nine of the 10 Trinity League games that the Lions played. He missed one game against Mater Dei, once again because of ODP obligations, and the Lions got shut out.

Gutierrez – who finished with 51 points this season – scored 12 goals during league, five of those coming in a two-game span against Orange Lutheran and Mater Dei. The two goals he scored in the Lions’ rematch with the rival Monarchs were the only two that JSerra slipped past Mater Dei’s able goalkeeper, Paul Elias. JSerra won that day, 2-0, and that result helped deliver JSerra’s second consecutive Trinity League championship.

At the end of the season, JSerra was in first place in the standings, one point ahead of Mater Dei.

“Any time he has anyone one-on-one,” JSerra coach Davor Fabulich said, “I can’t wait to see what he is going to do.”