Ozark’s Adrian Ortega is climbing up the school’s all-time scoring ranks. Earlier this season he passed his brother for 12th place. “He knows that,” Adrian said. “I made sure, I made sure that he was the first person who knew I passed him.”
A few games ago he even passed his head coach Zack Owens on that list. “He gets to mouth me now for the rest of his life if he wants to,” Owens said, with a laugh.
Now he’s in the top ten. But while he’s flying high now, his Tigers career almost never got off the ground in the first place. “As an eighth grader he almost did not play,” Owens said. “In fact, if you ask him, he was enjoying playing Fortnite. He’s going to kill me for saying that but we had to kind of talk him into coming out.”
“I don’t play [Fortnite] anymore,” Adrian said, with a laugh. “It was an old thing. I was a little chubbier back then in 8th grade so that was all I would do. That’s kind of one of the reasons I was considering not[playing]. Because I was so addicted to that game.”
His mom, dad, and brother helped him kick the addiction. And now his kicks are leaving coach Owens in awe. “We like to say that he has the ball attached to his shoelaces,” Owens said. “He always has that mentality that he wants to beat people even more than he wants to score goals. And he can do it.”
When asked what his favorite thing about the game is, Adrian has a simple answer. “Mess around with players,” Adrian said. “I like that. That’s probably my favorite thing.”
“I want him to get that single-season record,” Owens said. “He’s worked so hard and he’s been such a great asset to us as a team that I think he deserves it. And I think it’s one that he’s definitely going to get.”
Owens was right. Â Adrian has tied the school’s single-season record for goals scored with a mark of 27.
And there are a lot of folks in Ozark who are happy he decided to give it a shot.
