MANTECA BULLETIN ALL-AREA SOCCER TEAM
• Renae McFadden, Ripon junior: Lightning fast ball-handling wizard racked up 44 goals and 17 assists in leading the Indians to their first-ever Sac-Joaquin Section title. Goal total ranked her second behind Player of the Year Nicole Vanni among the state’s spring soccer leaders.
Midfielder of the Year
• Lacy Vaughan, Sierra junior: With plenty of goals to go around on a stacked Sierra team, Vaughan made a living setting everyone else up, recording 17 assists in the process.
Defender of the Year
• Jamie Huffman, Sierra senior: All-Valley Oak League first-team sweeper anchored the area’s stingiest backline that gave up just 11 goals in 29 matches.
Goalkeeper of the Year
• Moriah Fallon, Sierra junior: Undoubtedly aided by a stout defense, Fallon was still put in situations to make the big save. Clinched Sierra’s Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV finals berth with a save during the deciding shootout vs. West Campus. Accumulated 139 saves and an area-high 21 shutouts.
• Michaela Scott, Sierra senior: Combined size and skill while working magic with Vanni in Sierra’s vaunted front line. Scott’s productive season ended with 27 goals and 20 assists.
• Meredith Perkins, Ripon senior: Trans Valley League’s Co-Best Offensive Player totaled 21 goals and 18 assist months after earning the conference’s Most Valuable Player honor in volleyball last fall.
• Kallie Jacobs, Ripon junior: The other bookend on the Indians’ potent attacking third posted 21 goals and 15 assists.
Midfielders
• Delaine Quaresma Sierra junior: The third talented Quaresma sister to play for the Timberwolves contributed eight goals and 10 assists before suffering a season-ending ankle injury in the first round of the playoffs.
• Stephanie Vanni, Sierra sophomore: Player of the Year’s younger sister proved ready for the varsity level as a freshman and shined in 2009, providing 11 goals and 10 assists.
• Rileigh Mankin Manteca junior: Buffaloes missed their best player while she was out for nearly a month because of an ankle injury, but she still managed to put up 11 goals and seven assists — second most on the team in both categories.
• Hannah Obanni, Sierra senior: Go-to kicker in set pieces chipped in six goals and three assists while leading the area’s top defensive line.
• Kate Isganitis, Ripon senior: TVL’s Most Valuable Player was the stalwart sweeper for the section’s Division IV champions. She even contributed two goals and one assist on the other end.
• Thalia Bobadilla, Ripon junior: Daughter of head coach Jose Bobadilla was a playmaker from the stopper position, where she was in on 13 assists while adding a goal.
• Taylor Trout, Manteca senior: Dangerous all over the field with her height and skill. Defensive stopper was dangerous up front on set pieces, as she pitched in three goals and five assists.
Goalkeeper
• Morgan Torres-Unger, Ripon junior: Gifted shot stopper allowed just 18 goals in 26 matches while recording 12 clean sheets.
Over the course of her four-year career, Vanni scored 107 goals and dished out 44 assists in helping the Timberwolves go 84-15-10 while outscoring their opponents 414-75.
Vanni holds Sierra’s all-time career goals record, breaking Cherie Early’s 1999-2003 mark of 101, and holds Sierra’s single-season goals record (53 in 2009), besting Katelyn Quaresma’s 2004 mark of 40.
This season, no one in California found net more often than the Timberwolves’ striker.
Despite the gaudy nature of Vanni’s mountainous list of achievements, however, the numbers don’t begin to tell the story.
“(The career-goals record) was a pretty cool accomplishment,” Vanni said. “But it wasn’t something that I came into the season even thinking about. I didn’t even know it was a possibility until about halfway through. We didn’t put any emphasis on it, I know I never did.
“That wasn’t what I was out there to do.”
Instead, what makes Vanni the type of player that coaches and teammates adore, is what she and the rest of the Timberwolves were out there to do: Win.
Unfortunately for Sierra, the T’Wolves’ only poor performance of the season came in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV championship game, a 4-1 loss to Whitney, the lone setback in 29 contests.
The loss was an anti-climactic end to a dream season that garnered Sierra national acclaim as the No. 8 ranked team in the country by ESPN Rise.
Afterward, murmurs began to surface that the Timberwolves were overrated.
“We had one bad game all season,” Vanni said. “We’ve heard people say that we’re overrated, but they’re judging our entire season on one game. It’s a bummer, and it comes with the territory, but if you don’t show up to play in the most important game, that’s what happens.”
One look at Sierra’s grueling preseason and an always-rigorous Valley Oak League docket serves as a forceful rebuttal to the skeptics on the periphery.
Sierra picked up wins over University of San Francisco, Ponderosa, Bella Vista, Central Catholic, Lincoln, El Dorado, West Campus, as well as two wins each over Sonora and Oakdale.
Sierra racked up 21 shutouts and outscored its VOL opponents 85-4, not including a 6-0 win over East Union in the title round of the Vern Gebhardt Champions Cup.
“It was a great season,” Vanni said. “We wanted one thing, and that was to win the championship. Even though we didn’t get the section, we still got the VOL. Most teams aren’t lucky enough to get even that, so we were grateful for it.”
As a striker, Vanni’s purpose on the field is to put the ball in the net. But her 17 assists tied midfielder Lacy Vaughan for second-most on the team, and point to her reputation as a team-first player.
“I like to win,” Vanni said. “But you can’t win by yourself. That’s always been my mind-set. It takes 11 players.”
On May 18, Vanni inked her national letter of intent to join head coach Jack Hyde at San Francisco State in the fall.
Vanni says that while she’s excited, she’s also starting to become a little nervous about taking the next step in her life.
Part of that process will be saying good-bye to her coaches and teammates, as well as her parents and little sister, Stephanie, who Vanni had an opportunity to play with for the first time ever over the course of the past two seasons.
“A lot of people said, ‘Oh, you’re so mean to your sister,’” Vanni said. “I’m not mean, I just know what she can do and I like to push her to be better. If she’s having a bad game, I’m going to yell at her to snap out of it. But she’s a great player and she works hard.”
And despite the fact that a supremely talented group of Sierra seniors are now walking away, Vanni believes that head coach Manuel Pires will have another winner on his hands a year from now.
“The whole team has a lot coming back,” Vanni said. “They are going to do great things next year.”
