Safe to say the Manteca FC Rebels are settling into their home at Memorial Stadium on the campus of Ripon Christian quite nicely.

The Rebels followed up their 1-0 victory in their United Premier Soccer League home opener on March 29 over Eclipse Soccer Academy with an impressive 9-1 win over the Suisun

City Rush front of an energetic crowd of supporters on Saturday.

“We’ve been pretty good the first two matches, even after dropping a tough one on the road at Azteca (Merced),” MFC coach James Burns said. “Our objective today was to come out and play a full 90 minutes in front of our home crowd, and I think we came really close to doing that tonight.”

Much like the home opener, the Rebels were able to create chances early and often. On Saturday night, however, they were able to convert those chances to take control of the match early on.

MFC got on the board just two minutes into the match when Niklas Bissig got on the end of a pass from Janluca Tejeda inside the box and beat the SCR keeper to put the hosts up 1-0. Less than 30 seconds later Jasha Vaszary slotted home a goal after a great individual effort and assist from Abraham Tejeda to make it 2-0.

The Rebels found themselves on their front foot offensively for much of the game, led by strong midfield performances from Jesus Rios, Aydin Akca and Isaac Nawabi. Nawabi assisted on the third goal for MFC on a beautiful through ball to Janluca Tejeda, his first of two assists in the game.

“As a team, I thought we played really well tonight,” Nawabi said. “Obviously, with any game there are some mistakes we can clean up, but I was happy to take advantage of the opportunities. Those guys made some great finishes; I was just trying to put them in good spots to do so.”

Up 4-0 at the half after outshooting SCR 12-1 in the first half, the Rebels showed depth that will serve them well in the NorCal South division of the UPSL. Forward Juan Gallegos, who missed last week’s game due to an ankle injury, came on as a substitute at halftime and tallied the first-ever hat trick for the MFC Rebels at the UPSL level, with all three coming in a 15-minute stretch late in the second half.

“We work really hard as a team week in and week out,” Gallegos said. “I was eager to get back out there after missing the last game and it means everything to me to be able to record the club’s first hat trick.”

Six different Rebels tallied goals in the 9-1 offensive flurry, but MFC were equally impressive on the defensive end. Led by former Ripon High standout Hayden Beier, Suisun City Rush were held to just three shots on goal, two of which came late in the match with the outcome no longer in question.

“The back line we run out there has played together at Delta for over a year and it shows,” Burns said. “They’ve had a lot of games together, and they should be good night in and night out, and they were tonight.”

Despite the impressive performance, coach Burns sees room for improvement for his young squad.

“We have a bye week next week and we’ve been banged up, so they’ll get some much needed rest,” Burns said. “But then we’ll get right back to work. I’ve said it all season I am looking for a complete performance for 90 minutes, and I still think we are yet to give that to our fans.”

MFC Rebels will play two road games at Juniors FC on April 26 and at Madera Evolution FC on May 3 before heading back home to Memorial Stadium to face Soccer Without Borders Academy of Oakland on May 10 at 6 p.m.