The Lathrop girls’ soccer team has served notice to the Western Athletic Conference.
In their inaugural WAC contest Monday, it took the Spartans just 15 seconds to get on the board and they rode the hot foot of Kassandra Ceja to an 8-0 win over Pacheco of Los Banos at Bennie Gatto Field.
“After getting beat up in the VOL it’s kind of nice to come in here and get our first win in the WAC,” Lathrop coach Jose Montes said. “We still have a lot of room to improve. We did some good stuff today but there is some stuff for us to get better at. We’ll see how it goes.”
A junior, Ceja is rebounding from an injury last season.
“She was MVP in the VOL as a freshman,” Montes said. “Now she’s out to redeem herself after getting hurt, and she makes everyone else play better. You read about the goals she scores but when she is in the game she distributes the ball to everyone else too.”
Celided Enriquez got the Spartans (1-0 WAC, 2-2 overall) on the board in the first minute when she covered a rebound and got in back in the net.
Enter Ceja.
Ceja picked up the next three goals – two off of assists from Aryana Jones – and then Jones assisted Kayla DeAnda in the 25th minute for a 5-0 halftime lead.
“I think pre-season was a little better this year than last year when we had more injuries,” Ceja said. “Coming into a new league we didn’t know what to expect and if we keep playing the way we are playing the new league will turn out OK for us.”
Ceja returned the favor to Jones with an assist to start the second half before notching two more goals to finish with five goals and an assist and Jones posted three assists and a goal.
“Being a freshman on this team and being able to contribute is just amazing for me,” Jones said. “It’s great being able to be out here with older girls and being able to play to their level and their ability and still contribute to the team.”
Lathrop got off shot after shot, totaling 27 shots – 16 on goal – to just one shot on goal for the Panthers (0-1, 1-3).
Junior Varsity
Pacheco 3, Lathrop 0
Lisell Ruvalcava and Brianna Garcia played well on defense and communicated well on defense for the Spartans.
Girls soccer
Sierra 5, Lincoln 1
The Timberwolves played stellar defense against visiting Lincoln on Monday.
Cal-bound Jadyn Shinn opened the scoring, taking a pass from Callie Crain to give her team a 1-0 lead in the first half. Moments later, Crain was credited with an assisted of non-goal by Lincoln while Tiana Cello added another goal thanks to an assist by Yasmin Ballew.
Sierra (9-1-1) made it 4-0 in the second half.
Juliana Rodriguez later assisted Nicole Martin’s goal.
The Timberwolves, in addition, defeated St. Mary’s in the Delta College Showcase on Saturday, 2-0.
Shinn and Ballew both scored while Cello and Shinn, respectively, were credited with assists.
Junior goalie Michaela Bitle had 13 saves including eight of those coming in the second half.
East Union 11,
Riverbank 0
Malia Allen played goalie in the first half and switched to forward in the second half.
In the process, she scored twice as the Lancers (5-1-1) rolled to a one-sided victory over Riverbank (1-7).
Along the way, Taylor Campbell had two goals and an assist, Savannah Hudson had one goal and two assists, and Taylor McMahon, Gabriella Cruz, Fatima Jauregui and Hailey Sims netted a goal each.
McMahon, Sims and Natasha Honore were credited with an assist apiece.
“Our defense played great,” said EU coach Carlos Gaspar. “It was good to get everyone into the game.”
Boys soccer
Venture Academy 3,
Sierra 2
The Timberwolves (3-4) came out flat against Venture Academy on Monday.
“We didn’t pick it up until the second half,” Sierra coach Joe Pires said. “I don’t think we had the fire after playing four games during the weekend.”
The Timberwolves led early on thanks to a non-goal by Venture Academy (4-2).
But then the Mustangs made up for the error by scoring on a penalty kick followed by capitalizing on a Sierra mistake.
Venture Academy built up a 3-1 lead early in the second half.
The Timberwolves only score came on an unassisted goal by Gabriel Cervantes late in the game.
They’ll travel to Kimball on Thursday for a scheduled 5:45 p.m. game.
