By ROY HESS, Staff Writer
SAN BENITO — Sharyland Pioneer defeated Mission Veterans Memorial 4-0 Saturday to win the annual San Benito Dog Pound Girls Soccer Tournament.
It also could be called the unofficial North Mission city championship that was contested at Bobby Morrow Stadium between two schools located within the same city limits and situated farther north than sister schools Mission High and Sharyland High.
“Yes, I guess you could say that,” said Pioneer coach J.J. Lopez, who came over to start the Pioneer girls soccer program after teaching and coaching for 17 years at Sharyland High.
After winning their four-team pool-play group Friday, the Lady Diamondbacks (8-3-1) enjoyed a strong showing by defeating PSJA Southwest 4-1 in the semifinals before triumphing over Mission Veterans.
“I’m just glad we had this opportunity to prove to people that we’re not going to hang back and do much of anything (because we’re a first-year school),” said Julie Alanis, a junior center midfielder and team captain for the Lady Diamondbacks. “We’re going to keep pushing to do well and stay humble.”
Added teammate and fellow team captain Hannah Padilla, also a junior center midfielder, “This gives us a big push and more confidence going into district (next week). This tournament showed us the kind of teams we’re going to play in District (31-5A), so it helped set us up for the future. I think we’re really confident and we have a lot of team chemistry going into district.
“We all work really hard and we all get along well, so I think it’s going to be a good season,” Padilla added.
Just 3 1/2 minutes into Saturday’s title match that was played with 30-minute halves, Pioneer’s Andrea Reyes dribbled in from the left side and sent a cross to teammate Astrid Cavazos, who nudged the ball in from close range for a 1-0 lead.
Later in the half, the Lady Diamondbacks scored back-to-back goals into basically an open net with the goalkeeper caught out of position to take a 3-0 advantage into intermission. Padilla fired in a shot from about 18 yards out on the right side with a little more than nine minutes remaining until halftime to make it 2-0. Barely two minutes after that, Cavazos found the net again from about 10 yards out for a 3-0 lead.
Two minutes into the second half, Alanis added her team’s fourth goal to seal the victory.
“We’re going to try to stay humble and not read too much into winning this tournament,” Lopez said. “Our objective is to get polished up for district. We have a very young group, but I have to hand it to them, they found a way to win, even though we’ve been a little plagued by injuries and had only 14 girls available to play. I think we have seven injured girls that we should get back next week.
“Obviously, anytime you can win a tournament, it’s a good accomplishment, but we’re not going to count our chickens before they hatch,” he added.
In other action at the tournament Saturday, La Joya Palmview edged host San Benito 1-0 for the Silver Bracket championship, while Edinburg Vela prevailed over La Joya High 1-0 on penalty kicks for the Bronze Bracket championship.
San Benito Girls Dog Pound Soccer Tournament scores: