It was hard enough opening the Valley Oak League season against the perennially tough Oakdale Mustangs.

And if the game had ended at halftime – knotted at a goal apiece – head coach Justin Coenenberg would have considered that victory.

But it didn’t. And when Oakdale came back out in the second half they poured on five more goals en route to a 6-1 victory that left Manteca stunned.

“They’re a big, strong, fast and physical team and I think that at the start we were able to play physical right along with them,” Coenenberg said. “We were able to move the ball around really well for the first 20 or 25 minutes but then we weren’t winning the possessions and doing what we needed to do.

“I thought we made a lot of silly mistakes and gave them a lot of opportunities late in the game and you can’t do that against a team like Oakdale because they’ll capitalize. And they did.”

Oakdale’s Manuel Aguilar was the first to find the back of the net in the 10th minute, and the goal stood until Manteca’s Josh Kong equalized the goal in the 32nd minute for a tied halftime score.

Then Oakdale blew up.

Zidane Saucedo broke the tie in the 45th minute, and Josh Barrera extended the lead in the 52nd minute. Manuel Aguilar scored next, in the 55th minute, and Jake Burchell headed a ball past goalkeeper Eduardo Aguilar. Zach Barnum finished out the game’s scoring in the 68th minute.

With the loss Manteca falls to 0-1 in VOL play.

East Union 6,

Central Catholic 1

Thanks to a Gerardo Romero hat trick and a pair of goals by Daniel Gomez, the East Union boys soccer team was able to crush the Central Catholic Raiders during their opening Valley Oak League game Monday evening.

Alex Velasquez scored the first goal of the game before Romero and Gomez started an onslaught that would carry team for the remainder of the contest. Alex Sanchez and Tomas Suarez both had assists as two of Romero’s goals were headers that came from a cross pass.

“It’s something that we practice – you hope that those sorts of plays come but that’s why we practice them,” head coach Victor Polanco said. “We push those crosses and we pushed those crosses tonight and we able to move the ball to the side and make the cross and see him connect with it.

“It was just connecting on both of those crosses with the head and that’s what Gerardo was able to do. And we dominated pretty much the whole game – we were able to move the ball whenever we wanted. It was a great game for us.”

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.



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