Oakes Provides Another Award-Winning Effort

The soccer field is a stage for senior Jill Oakes of Harvard-Westlake High.

Her coach believes that someday, the world will be her audience.

“She embodies everything that women’s professional players aspire to be,” said Stacy Schwartz, the Wolverines’ first-year coach and former Olympic Development Program under-17 player.

“It’s just a matter of refining everything.”

Oakes, 17, is the best player at Harvard-Westlake (23-1-2), which won its second consecutive section title this season. She recorded 21 goals and 13 assists from her center midfielder position.

Three weeks ago, she was selected the Gatorade national girls’ soccer player of the year. Now, she has been chosen The Times’ girls’ soccer player of the year.

Oakes, a member of the women’s under-19 national team, has signed a letter of intent to play at UCLA. She earned the national honor after a season she began with doubts about whether she would play high school soccer.

“This year, that was a big decision for me,” Oakes said. “You have to sacrifice a lot to play soccer at the level I’m at now and I wanted to spend my senior year doing the things I always wanted to do but couldn’t because of soccer.”

Among those things was dance, a life-long passion she indulged recreationally with hip-hop and street-dancing routines.

But Oakes, a West Hills resident, enrolled in an advanced dance class at Harvard-Westlake that required her to help choreograph and participate in a concert performance staged last month.

In preparation for the show, she missed several soccer practices, with Schwartz’s permission. Such concession and compromise was a key factor in Oakes’ decision to play for the Wolverines.

Oakes’ presence in the lineup helped the Wolverines (23-1-2) repeat as Southern Section Division IV co-champions. She scored off a corner kick by Kim LaVere in the 45th minute and Harvard-Westlake tied La Verne Bonita, 1-1, in the championship game.

The Wolverines’ second consecutive title--they tied Louisville, 2-2, last season--made Oakes’ return for her senior season worth the effort.

Oakes, who played her freshman season at Van Nuys Birmingham, made an immediate impact after transferring to Harvard-Westlake as a sophomore.

“She knows she’s good, but she’s constantly saying she doesn’t do it alone,” Schwartz said. “She’s one of those players that’s playing with teammates who might not all be as good as she is. She could play down to their level.

“But she doesn’t. She lifts their level instead. She has a confidence, a presence, on the field that makes everybody better, and it gives the whole team more confidence.”

Oakes’ self-assurance has been boosted by being part of the under-19 national team player pool. The under-19 team will play in World Cup competition in Canada this summer.

And it wasn’t hurt by playing on the under-21 national team that won the Nordic Cup for the fifth time in six years in Dokka, Norway, in July.

In fact, it was Oakes’ goal from 12 yards in the 76th minute of a semifinal match against Germany that gave the U.S. a 1-1 tie it needed to advance to the championship match.

“I was playing with players who were that much faster, stronger and played smarter in a game that I thought I had down pretty well,” she said. “So the fact that I was able to do well was good, and very satisfying, for me.

“I think it made me realize that I am actually a good player. I’m a good player, and I know I’m that much closer to them--but I also know I have a long way to go.”

She won’t get there by driving. Oakes has yet to try to obtain her license.

“Isn’t that bad?” she says with a laugh. “I’ve just been very busy, and I’ve never gotten to the point where I haven’t been able to get a ride, so I haven’t been forced to do it.”

No matter. She’s already in the fast lane to success.