The circuitous route Jillienne Aguilera took to arrive at Woodside High is unlikely, but the Wildcats are fine with it.

Aguilera last month completed an illustrious four-year varsity career at the San Mateo County school by scoring a school-record 39 goals to lead the Wildcats (18-1-2) to the Central Coast Section Open Division title. She also had a mind-boggling 105 goals for her career.

Aguilera, thanks to her efforts, is the Prep2Prep Girls Soccer CCS Player of the Year.

“Jillienne, wow, in my tenure I’ve never had such a hard-working kid,” Woodside coach Jose Navarette said. “She’s naturally gifted, but also has the hard work and desire. She’s a rare combination of athletic talent and desire and smarts – she’s the total package.”

Aguilera formerly lived in Sunnyvale, but moved to Redwood City when her mother Julie remarried. There she was playing for a club team, Juventus, which included numerous Woodside High or future Woodside High players. Aguilera decided to enroll at the leafy, suburban Woodside High campus and her arrival was a boon for Wildcats’ soccer.

Possessing good speed, deft ball-handling and great footwork, Aguilera scored 15 goals as a freshman despite missing some games due to injury, 23 goals as a sophomore, 28 as a junior and then completely busted loose as a senior by scoring nearly 40. Three times she scored four goals, five times three goals or more and 12 times two goals or more. In 23 games, she had the game-winning goal.

Athletic ability runs in Aguilera family. Her dad Jorge Aguilera moved here from Puerto Rico as a teen. He later swam and played water polo at Pepperdine University. Her mom played soccer in high school and her brother, 26, played baseball at Fremont-Sunnyvale High.

Even given Aguilera’s background and athletic gifts, she was surprised by her gaudy goal output this season.

“Compared to other years, it was a large jump,” she said. “I was surprised, but I do like scoring.”

There were only four games Aguilera did not score in this season, including Woodside’s 1-0 victory against Mountain View for the CCS Open title. The Wildcats scored early in that one and then held on for the victory.

“It was crazy,” Aguilera said. “The whole game could have gone either way. I was happy we were able to pull of the win. There were times they had good opportunities to score, but they weren’t able to, otherwise they could have come back. I was happy after what happened last year.”

Woodside lost in the quarterfinals to Leigh on penalty kicks last season.

Woodside’s surge to a section title was surprising considering it had to defeat powerhouses Santa Teresa, Archbishop Mitty and Mountain View in succession to win the title.

“We just took it one game at a time and didn’t focus on the whole thing,” Aguilera said. “The Open is the hardest division and we couldn’t slack off one bit. Santa Teresa had tied us 1-1 during the regular season and we knew they were capable of beating us. Mitty we did good research on and knew how to cover their offense.”

As for Aguilera, she was virtually not coverable for most of her illustrious prep career, tying her record of 28 goals with three games left in the regular season and then adding 11 more goals to close out the PAL season and the Open playoffs.

Next year it is on to the University of Arizona for the Woodside marvel who recently has moved with her family back to Sunnyvale – albeit too late to help any high schools there with her uncanny ability to put a soccer ball in a net.

Jose Navarette never made a concerted effort to become the Woodside High girls soccer coach.

“I had a friend who was coaching the Woodside boys and he asked if I’d be interested in coaching the girls,” said Navarette, who just completed his 18th year as the coach of the Wildcat girls. “It was an accident.”

A fortuitous accident, as it turns out. This season Navarette, 54, led the Wildcats to the Central Coast Section Open Division title. For his efforts, he is the Prep2Prep CCS Coach of the Year.

Woodside deserves just about every plaudit coming its way. It won the Peninsula Athletic League title, nosing out a strong Menlo-Atherton team for the title. Then to win the CCS Open title, it merely had to beat Santa Teresa, Archbishop Mitty and Mountain View in succession, which it did.

“It was unreal competition,” said Navarette, a former Sequoia High player. “Sometimes you don’t beat all three of those teams in a decade, much less in a week. It was very exciting. I told the girls ‘Somebody has to win the title, so why not us?’”

Navarette has been kicking around CCS soccer forever. As a sophomore at Sequoia, his team played Watsonville in the CCS finals and lost 5-3 at the now-defunct Blackford High of San Jose.

“Watsonville is still making CCS finals,” Navarette said.

Following a satisfying 2-0 win against Mitty in the semifinals this year, Woodside took on a strong Mountain View team. The Wildcats scored in the 16th minute and then had to hang on for dear life to win it.

“The clock was moving very slowly,” Navarette said. “When the clock got down to two minutes, it seemed like it couldn’t move any slower. I never felt like we had it in the bag; it was so tightly contested. It was very gratifying.”

Ironically, Navarette traces Woodside’s success to a 2-0 loss it suffered to Menlo-Atherton in the last game of the regular season.

“We did not play well,” he said. “We got embarrassed. But I think it was good because it refocused us.”

Think of it as a fortunate accident – the kind Navarette is all too familiar with.

Courtney Ogren

Katie Guenin

Laura Carceroni

Nicole Sweeney

Laura Carceroni

Jillienne Aguilera

Emily Smith

Katie Guenin

Sophia Mendoza

Mia Shenk

Hailey Prentice

Alison Lu

Courtney Ogren

Emma Chivers

Belinda Ascencio

Nicole Sweeney

Alexis Prieto

Georgia Kingman

Zoe Enright

Sarah McLeod

Jessica Yu

Brianna Hart

Jacey Pederson

Ana Calero