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BOYS SOCCER: Weston Ranch stuns East Union to take sole possession of 1st place in VOL
Gonzalez scores lone goal in 75th minute
Bulletin boys soccer 2018-19
East Union midfielder Jonathan Ponce knocks the ball away from Weston Ranch’s Ariel Silva with a slide tackle. - photo by JONAMAR JACINTO/The Bulletin

STOCKTON — It was a rough two years following back-to-back Sac-Joaquin Section championship runs for Weston Ranch’s boys soccer team.
Third-year starter Robert Gonzalez is eager to bring the Cougars back into prominence. With the school’s all-time leading scorer in attendance, Gonzalez and Weston Ranch edged past East Union 1-0 Thursday in a battle for sole possession of the top spot in the Valley Oak League. The Lancers claimed their last four meetings with Weston Ranch, and none of them were competitive.
“We came in with the mindset that we’re the underdog, and any points we picked up today were going to be huge,” seventh-year Weston Ranch coach Francisco Cisneros said. “We played our best game of the year, by far.”
Joseph Mayorca, who plays for Stanislaus State, watched as his alma mater beat East Union (3-1, 11-3-2) for the first time since the fall of 2015 when he was a Weston Ranch senior. The Cougars (4-0, 9-6) went 11-27-9 the past two seasons, and they suffered some tough losses heading in to league play.
“We’re just motivated right now,” said Gonzalez, who has committed to Ottawa University in Arizona. “We were down the last two seasons and our losses in the preseason motivated us to get better for league.”
It was his goal in the 75th minute that decided this competitive and sometimes-chippy first-place showdown. Just two minutes prior, he attempted a shot from distance that skipped off the crossbar and was off the mark on several other good looks in the first half.
His goal came at a time when it was East Union, outplayed for much of the contest, that was in control. Weston Ranch capitalized after a misplayed ball from the Lancers. The Cougars countered quickly, with Kevin Urrutia-Hernandez delivering it to Gonzalez with a single touch. With one defender to beat, Gonzalez approached the 18-yard line and pounded it to the upper-right corner.
“It was just me, one defender and the goalie,” Gonzalez said. “I knew I had to take it.”
Cisneros is glad he did. Gonzalez now has 16 goals on the season and six in four league contests.
“He’s having an MVP type year,” he said. “He’s a threat every time he touches the ball. Even when he doesn’t shoot it, he’s always doing something to create chances.”
East Union had few chances in the first half. Leading scorer Giovanni Padilla, who has 17 goals and nine assists, was non-existent, and it didn’t help that two of the Lancers other top attackers — German Gonzalez and Alex Arroyo — were out. Weston Ranch was minus three starters.
“Extremely flat,” East Union coach Ronnie Green said. “We just couldn’t get anything going. I don’t know if it was the holidays or the missing players, but it was not pretty soccer.
“(The Cougars) were first to the ball for the entire 80 minutes, I’ll give them that. They had more drive and ambition than our team did today.”
East Union eventually did get it together on the attacking third midway through the second half. The Lancers won possession and pieced together some threatening runs but had nothing to show for it. Their best opportunity came in the 66th minute when Padilla blew a breakaway shot wide right of the goal as Weston Ranch keeper Francisco Vega jumped off his line.
“We couldn’t get him the ball enough,” Green said of Padilla. “I shifted him to the outside from the middle and they kind of lost him for a while, we just couldn’t take advantage of it.”
With already a third of the VOL schedule behind them, Green and the Lancers expect to stay in the hunt for the rest of the way. It’s a three-team race that also involves defending champion Sierra, which East Union defeated 2-1 thanks to a late goal on Dec. 18.
“The league’s going to flip flop three more times until the end,” Green said.