The High School South girls soccer team and girls basketball team enjoyed some of their best seasons in recent history during this school year.
Sophia Latif Estafan was one of the common reasons for their success.
The Pirates junior is moving now into the spring season and hopes to help the South girls lacrosse team also reach great heights.
“A lot of the girls I play with in certain sports, I’ll see in a different sport, especially a lot of my basketball teammates,” Latif Estafan said. “I see them more than one season so relationships like that definitely help. You’re not going onto the court with a new face that you don’t know. You already have that chemistry from an old sport, and now you’re just moving on to a different place, it’s like the communication is there so you don’t have to worry about that.”
Latif Estafan has been a bigger part of her Pirate teams this year. She gave the South basketball team an inside presence as she had the year before, but in her second varsity season she was a lot more assertive.
“I definitely came into this season really excited,” said Latif Estafan. “It was my second full year on varsity, so I was really excited to see what it was going to be like. We had a new JV coach who definitely was just a coach who has more experience with the position I play. So it was really good to get tips on that and it really improved me. It clearly showed and it really improved how I played. I think I was also a lot more confident on the court. I just I got significantly more rebounds than points this year.”
It started with the first game of the year when she faced off against Hightstown’s center, a 6-foot-3 Howard University commit. Latif Estafan is strong, but only 5-foot-10 and that’s with the boost of sneakers. She came up big when she finished a point away from a double-double with nine points to go with 17 rebounds.
“She really kind of set the tone for her season that she was going to be out there ready to compete and go against some of the best of the best in the CVC that we’re going to be playing in that forward position,” said Pirates head coach Zak Kumor. “She showed that she was ready to be one of those players and be that for us.”
Latif Estafan worked on developing her skillset with JV coach Scott Kallens, and the Pirates repeatedly expressed their confidence in her to move from being the pass-first player she was as a sophomore to more aggressive as a scorer as well. The result was more than 200 points scored this season, and Latif Estafan ranked among the best rebounders in the CVC at 11.3 rebounds per game. She hauled in 20 rebounds in a win over rival High School North, and she snared 19 boards in a win over Delran. Her season total of 259 rebounds was historic for the program.
“It is the most since at least 2010,” Kumor said. “There are no like true record books for the years prior. I know they had some really good teams for the girls side in the ‘90s and early 2000s. But I believe since 2000 she might have the most rebounds, which is a pretty significant deal.”
Latif Estafan’s confidence built through the season. The Pirates had a good core of seniors, and Kumor still encouraged her to contribute more offensively. He wanted the offense to run through her, giving her the option to pass or score. She responded, scoring in double figures in four of the final five games of the year.
“Just having a coach that really showed he cared and that he really did think I was a good player and I deserved that spot on the team, it definitely helped,” Latif Estafan said. “If I made a mistake, I wasn’t worried about, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m gonna have to run,’ or ‘what is coach gonna think?’ I just know that now we’re gonna fix this in practice, how would he want me to go about this, how can I fix it in the game? I wouldn’t keep thinking about it. I wouldn’t let it ruin my game. I’d just go to the next play and help my team out.”
It was the second straight season that she had to adjust to a significant increase in her role. This fall was her first year as a starting goalkeeper for the girls soccer team. She made 125 saves on the year, including a couple of games with 17 saves as the South girls finished 9-6-2 and 6-0 in the Valley Division of the Colonial Valley Conference.
“There were some aspects from basketball that were included from soccer,” Latif Estafan said. “Last year I would dive to the ground a lot for the ball, but this year that just like skyrocketed. I was always on the ground and I think that was definitely the goalie in me that was kind of coming out. I would go for those loose balls, just knowing how to dive properly now was definitely something that helped me.”
Latif Estafan did suffer a wrist injury that cut into some of her soccer season and worried her for basketball, but she recovered fine. An improved and more confident Latif Estafan and her basketball teammates finished 11-12 overall and 5-3 in the CVC Valley Division, a big jump from the year before when they lost 18 games and won just twice in the CVC Colonial Division. But Kumor had taken over three years ago eyeing this season with high potential.
“We returned quite a bit from the previous season, essentially our starting five returned outside of Bella Ruiz, who tore her ACL so she wasn’t able to play this year,” he said. “But all those other key contributors were really back and that was the big three seniors of Shaili (Holden), Rachel (Joseph) and Ellie Black, and then Sophia in the middle for us. And she took the exact jump that I thought she was going to take in terms of kind of making her name known in the CVC.”
The season has given her confidence for next year. The Pirates will graduate a chunk of their starters, and that will put Latif Estafan in an even bigger role. She’s never been afraid to take on more responsibility. Latif Estafan this year became an NJSIAA student ambassador.
“I was excited to see people from North/South and other parts of Central Jersey, just all over and how sports are run,” she said. “It was exciting to see how the breakdown works for states and playoffs and stuff like that. I really enjoyed it. I love sports, so I was glad I could incorporate another thing like that.”
Latif Estafan also participates in South’s Women in Sports Club that encourages opportunities for girls to support and join athletic programs. Outside of athletics, Latif Estafan shares her passion for STEM. She volunteers in the summer with the township’s National Inventors Hall of Fame rec program.
“I volunteer with little kids and I help them,” she said. “I love working with kids. It’s really fun.”
She is interested in becoming a pediatric doctor. That’s still years away. First is the spring lacrosse season and then a whole senior year where she will be asked to again step up her game even more.
“I’m really excited for basketball,” Latif Estafan said. “I’ve learned a lot of moves towards the end of the season that I’m excited to use next year and then especially since we lost a bunch of our starters this year, I’m excited to see how next year pans out and just what my role really will be like.”
It’s not just basketball. Each season has increased her confidence and allowed her to handle more.
“Soccer, same thing. I’m excited for my second year,” Latif Estafan said. “I did like it this year, so I’m excited to do it again and hopefully just be better. Obviously with my first season, there’s definitely some things to fix. So I’m excited to see how that goes. And then lacrosse, this season is just about to start, but I’m excited again next year for my final season. So hopefully that will be it will be a good season too.”
