Male Athlete of the Week: Trevor Peterson

When it comes to soccer here in Kern County, few leagues stack the talent like the Southwest Yosemite League. "It's tough there's no off nights," said Liberty coach Jay Gore who's in his 10th year coaching the Patriots. "I mean we have to be on every single night."

 

And in such competition when the games could go either way it's crucial to have a top keeper.

"If you have a solid top goalkeeper and maybe a goal scorer you can do a lot of damage in high school," said Gore. 

 

This season Liberty has that goalie in senior Trevor Peterson. He's played varsity four years and at 6'4 he's literally grown into the towering force he is in front of Liberty's goal. "Same type of feeling a striker gets from scoring a goal you get the same type of feeling making a save," said Peterson.

 

While Trevor's pulled off some big saves this year, where a goalie really gets his praise is when he stops the other team from scoring altogether.

 

He's had 10 clean sheets through 17 games this year including a clean sheet in his last 4. 

While his stats speak for themselves, teammates like Anthony Smith have taken notice. "Other keepers they have like regular blocks," said the junior forward.

 

But there's nothing regular about Trevor's saves as seen from his point of view he's not afraid to dive in amongst the cleats, leap for a ball out of his reach or thanks to his size make fingertip saves.

 

Behind all of his saves the Patriots are in first place in league and have their eyes fixed on their end of season goals. "The first thing would be get a league title and then putting the banner in the gym for that and then getting a valley title since we went last year and lost in overtime," he said.

 

Story will air on 23ABC tonight at 11:20PM