SEQUIM — Sequim Junior Soccer looks to level up its players’ game with support from a local expert.

Sequim High grad Juan Carlos “JC” Cisneros-Lopez, also a longtime coach for local teams, is now the nonprofit’s director of coaching and first paid employee.

“It’s a first for us,” said Josiah Bushy, acting president of Sequim Junior Soccer. “We’ve always been parent-volunteer led, but we needed someone to bring us to that next level.”

Cisneros-Lopez will develop the boys’ and girls’ select U15 teams that have been around since 2018.

“I’m going to do a lot of evaluating and then prepare a player pathway and get a curriculum going for when they start from (the recreational league),” he said. “Once they get into select, then we really give them the tools necessary to be able to succeed.”

Cisneros-Lopez moved to Sequim when he was 8 and played for the high school from 1996-2000. He has gone on to coach for nearly a decade with the Bainbridge Island Football Club and the North Peninsula Football Club women’s team. He has also been a men’s assistant coach for Peninsula College and coached at Sequim High School and the Storm King Soccer Club.

“My style of coaching is to help players become good teammates and help each other improve,” Cisneros-Lopez wrote in his application packet to the league.

He said his style is to encourage players to “always give 100 percent effort of your football ability’ (as) this effort will help your teammates improve and will also help you to achieve 101 percent, which then becomes your new 100 percent.”

“Players make players better,” Cisneros-Lopez said.

Along with implementing new player programs, Cisneros-Lopez, who holds European coaching certification and a U.S. soccer coaching diploma, said he plans to start a coaches program.

“You’ve got to have knowledgeable coaches so they can give tools to the players to be able to play the game,” he said.

Finding that drive to excel comes down to each player though, he finds.

“From my experience, an intrinsic environment that teaches players how to be good teammates has provided the best results for players to blossom on many levels,” Cisneros-Lopez said.

In his coaching career, he’s participated in coaching courses across Europe and done online mentorship programs with people all over the globe.

Started in the 1970s, Sequim Junior Soccer Football Club, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, hosts about 1,000 children each spring in recreational leagues, and 700 in the fall ranging in ages from 3-18. They play at the Albert Haller Playfields in Carrie Blake Community Park in Sequim.

Bushy said Dave and Erin Henderson developed and led the select program the last eight years and with their children aging out of the program, fellow board members felt it was time to bring in another expert like Cisneros-Lopez and keep amplifying the program.

“JC is amazing,” he said. “We were lucky to have him come aboard.”

On March 1, Cisneros-Lopez led two skills camps for the recreational program to help balance teams for the spring season and teach players some new skills.

“It was a win-win,” Bushy said.

Cisneros-Lopez said he’s seen local interest in soccer grow a lot since he was a kid and now he wants to foster that into creating a higher level of success for players.

He hopes to keep locals playing in Sequim rather than traveling to other areas for a more competitive level of soccer.

“I think that’s where ‘S’ and Storm King and these local clubs play a vital role in helping those players develop here so they don’t have to go to other clubs,” Cisneros-Lopez said. “Other clubs may have a higher level and more competition, but we can do our best to keep the talent here,” he said.

For the spring, Cisneros-Lopez will work with the recreational leagues before starting with select teams and tournaments in the summer. Select play will continue into the fall and recreational play will resume, too.

For current and future registration with Sequim Junior Soccer, people can visit sequimjunior soccer.com.