Merced Union High School District

It took just 24 seconds for El Capitan High junior Jaan Triano to make history on Wednesday night. Triano found himself with a scoring opportunity shortly after the opening whistle. Triano received a pass in front of the goal and became the first varsity player to score a goal in El Capitan’s new stadium as the Gauchos hosted their first athletic event in the new facility with a soccer game against Atwater.

 

Triano and fellow junior Leonardo Covarrubias scored goals for the Gauchos, but it was the Falcons who emerged with a closely-contested 3-2 victory in the Central California Conference opener under the lights. “It felt good,” said Triano, about scoring the first goal in stadium history. “We had to set the standard with the first game in the new stadium. We knew we were playing a good team in Atwater. We had to represent in the new stadium and put our legacy on the field. We tried to do that but the result didn’t go our way.”

 

The school held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new stadium on Tuesday afternoon. The boys had the honor of playing the first game on Wednesday and the girls will host Buhach Colony on Friday night. “It was fun to be able to have a game in a stadium for soccer here at night,” said El Capitan athletic director Rodd Parker. “And we couldn't be more pleased. It's awesome, it's tremendous, especially at night here with the lights on now. The guys scored in the first 30 seconds of the game. SThe game couldn't have started better for the soccer guys, and it's just a lot of fun.”

 

The soccer teams had to play their home games across town at McNamara Park during the construction of the stadium. There was definitely excitement and anticipation built up with the opening of the stadium. “We were all hyped up, we were all excited,” Triano said. “We finally get to play on the field. We used to have to travel across town to play home games. It feels really good to play here. I always wanted to represent my school and I finally get to represent them at home.”

 

Atwater (5-6-4) played the role of spoiler as Aadan Cisneros scored two first-half goals to give the Falcons a 2-1 lead at intermission. The Gauchos answered back early in the second half as Covarrubias drew a penalty in the box and then tied the game on the ensuing penalty kick. “I just told myself I have to make it, I have to score that,” Covarrubias said. “If I don’t score then our standard is going to go down.”

 

After converting on the penalty kick, Covarrubias raced to the net to retrieve the ball and raised his hand to the crowd as he sprinted back to midfield. “It felt great,” Covarrubias said. “It was amazing.”

 

The game was knotted at 2-2 until late in the second half Cisneros crossed a pass in front of a wide-open goal to a waiting teammate in Mathias Cole, who scored to give the Falcons a 3-2 lead in the 72nd minute.

 

The Falcons were soon celebrating a victory in their CCC opener. “You’re always going to be happy with a win,” said Atwater coach Matthew Brewer. “A win is important and three points is super critical when you get to league because there’s only 10 games. Three points goes a long way. I’m happy that we kept working and we got the win, but we didn’t play very well, there’s room for improvement.”

 

The Gauchos feel they can also learn from the match. “We played a good team, we played hard, we just needed to play better,” Covarrubias said. Triano added: “We have got to learn from this. We know Atwater is a good team and they’ve had so many months of practice. We just have to learn from our mistakes. We had a good game, we played hard and we’re going to get better for each CCC match.”

Here’s a roundup of the rest of the MUHSD boys and girls soccer action:

 

Boys Soccer

Merced 3, Los Banos 0 – Raymond Gonzalez scored two goals as the Bears defeated the Tigers 3-0. Branden Puckett added Merced’s other goal as the Bears improved to 5-3-3 overall. Gonzalez now has 13 goals in 11 matches this season.

 

Golden Valley 1, Buhach Colony 0 – Kevin Soto-Hernandez scored the only goal in the game in the 30th minute to help the Cougars emerge with a hard-fought victory over the Thunder. Cougars senior Eduardo Gonzalez won the ball at midfield, worked his way through the Thunder defense and delivered a pass in front of the goal to Soto-Hernandez, who deposited the shot in the back of the net.

 

Daniel Araujo recorded five saves in goal for GV and teammate Daniel Castro finished with two saves. The Cougars improved to 4-2-2 overall this season. Buhach Colony dropped to 3-4-1 overall.

 

Livingston 4, Grace Davis 1 (Tuesday) – Wolves senior Alejandro Avila recorded a hat trick with three goals to help Livingston improve to 3-0 in the Western Athletic Conference and 5-4 overall. Julian Barajas added the other goal for the Wolves. Avila has scored 12 goals this season in eight matches.

 

Girls Soccer

Buhach Colony 3, Golden Valley 0  – Siana Ingram, Abigail Young and Sofia Alcorn all scored goals as the Thunder opened CCC play with a victory over the Cougars. Julissa Duran recorded two assists and sophomore goalie Alyssa Silva stopped six shots in goal for Buhach Colony (8-6 overall). 

 

El Capitan 2, Atwater 1 – The Gauchos won their fourth match in the last five games to improve to 1-0 in the CCC and 7-3 overall. El Capitan senior Colette Collins scored on a shot outside the box and had a header off of a corner from Destiny Garcia to account for both of the Gauchos’ goals.The Falcons dropped to 1-4-1 on the season. El Capitan will play its first game in the new on-campus stadium on Friday against Buhach Colony.

 

Los Banos 2, Merced 1 – Reyna Martinez scored the Bears’ lone goal in the narrow loss to the Tigers. Merced will be back in action on Friday night at Golden Valley.

 

Grace Davis 3, Livingston 1 (Tuesday) – Nicole Lopez scored two goals and assisted on another to lead the Spartans past the Wolves in WAC action. Livingston dropped to 5-6-2 overall and 1-2 in the WAC.

 

Shawn Jansen is the MUHSD Program Manager Digital Media. He can be reached at Sjansen@muhsd.org