Cyndi Loza

Coach Javier Dominguez reviewed team practices with his distracted youth soccer team. His voice competed with the zoom of cars on U.S. 395.

“It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, but what do I always say?” Dominguez asked his “Lobitos,” Spanish for “little wolf pack.”

“Show up to the game?” asked Jose Jimenez, 9, a fourth-grader at Agnes Risley Elementary School.

“Try your best?” shouted Cuauhtemoc Rangel, 9, a fourth-grader at Veterans Memorial Elementary School.

“Come together as a team!” said Dominguez, 28. The other responses were acceptable, too, he said.

Northern Nevada Soccer League games take over Wednesday evenings at Miguel Ribera Park. Practices bring children ages 6-14 to the park, off Neil Road in Southwest Reno.

Dominguez said the park is not the notorious haven for crime he originally heard it to be. It’s an integral part of the Latino community off Neil Road in Southwest Reno.

“It’s not really what everyone says it to be,” Dominguez said. “It really is a focal point of the community. It’s the center point. It’s a point where the neighbors get to meet each other when traditionally they wouldn’t because they’re all stuffed-up in the apartment.”

Growing up off Neil Road, Alex Davalos, 21, said if the park wasn’t there “a lot of kids wouldn’t be doing this (soccer). It wouldn’t join these kids like they do.”

“It means a lot to the community, it really does,” Davalos said. “It brings them together. It brings different people together.”