Rodrigo’s senior season ends on familiar note: no playoffs, yet near-perfect contributions from ‘Legatron’
Updated through Apr. 28, 2015
Rodrigo’s senior season for Sprayberry came to a normal conclusion for the struggling program as the Yellow Jackets gained no playoff berth and had a final record of 5-11-1, including a pair of meaningless victories over fellow have-nots River Ridge and North Atlanta after being knocked out of playoff consideration 5-0 by Sequoyah.
However, the 6-1, 190-pounder was a veritable automaton regardless of the positions he was assigned to play.
Even though his teammates seemed to struggle, Rodrigo’s standards of excellence were never compromised. He finished the season averaging well under one error per game, his touch efficiency remained near-perfect at 99.8 percent and his pass completion percentage rose steadily, ending at more than 93 percent after completing more than 98 percent of his passes over the final three games.
Removed from the central midfield spot he had occupied for the previous two varsity seasons while averaging 80 minutes per game, Rodrigo became an immovable object at right back (occasionally left back and center back) while his teammates appeared to struggle in the midfield. For the season, Rodrigo was dispossessed only once for a grand total of two for the entire three seasons of varsity competition.
Rodrigo contributed only one goal to the Sprayberry offense as his defensive position kept him out of the attacking zone most of the time, but it was an important one — a game-tying free kick with three minutes left to play that enabled Sprayberry to tie visiting Campbell 2-2. At the time, Campbell was undefeated and ranked No. 3 in the state in a higher classification.
He also had three assists, all of them from long range. His major contributions from the back, besides extra-tough individual defending, were goal kicks, which averaged more than 65 yards with a best of 73 yards.
For “Legatron” (a nickname coined for him by a Georgia Bulldog football fan excited about the upcoming fall season in Athens), a long season of frustration ended, ironically, on the bench: he was head-butted by a North Atlanta player while clearing a ball out of the penalty area, sending him to the sidelines for the last six minutes of his career, diagnosed with a mild concussion.