Modesto boys’ historic Sac-Joaquin Section soccer playoff run ends with loss to Whitney
The Modesto High boys soccer team hasn’t had to play from behind much this season.
Going into Thursday’s CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division I soccer championship against Whitney High at Heart Health Park, the Panthers (18-1-3) were allowing an average of just over one goal a game.
The Wildcats (18-2-2) beat that average in the first half, scoring twice in a 5-0 win to capture their first section title and hand the Panthers their first loss of the season.
“Going down one zero is something we didn’t have a ton of experience with but we’ve been down this season,” Modesto coach Matt Mendes said. “That’s where it looked like possibly the pressure got to us a bit, but they picked themselves up.
“But when goal two went in, that’s kind of uncharted territory for us.”
Whitney is the second ranked team in the state and on Thursday, it played like it. The Wildcats moved the ball well, opening up chances for them to attack Modesto’s back line. Brayden Goularte came into the game as Whitney’s leading scorer and didn’t disappoint. The senior finished with a hat trick, scoring in the 28th, 56th and 79th minutes.
“We tried to get a little bit more of an attack going and I think what happened is it opened up our middle a little bit,” Mendes said. “Once you’re down, you usually don’t want to fall back, you have to keep pressing.”
But still, the Panthers had their chances, they just weren’t able to capitalize. Leading scorer Alexis Luna freed himself up a few times but the Whitney defense closed on him quickly and most corner kick opportunities were quickly cleared.
“We knew we wanted to start off quick and we had a couple of good chances at the end of the first half,” Mendes said. “If we get one, we go into halftime with momentum, 2-1, things could be different. But that’s just a really, really strong team.”
Even though they didn’t win, it isn’t lost on the team that they made history. There is no record of a Modesto High team ever reaching a section final.
“We’re happy to be here,” Luna said. “It was Modesto’s first ever section title (appearance), and obviously we didn’t get the result we wanted. They put in their chances we didn’t, it was their day, and they deserve it. Our team has been putting in lots of effort and I think it’s at least a good achievement to make history and that we made it here.”
The Panthers, who are the 25th ranked team in California in the most recent MaxPreps rankings, will await seeding for the NorCal regional championships that start next week.
“We know that whoever we play is gonna be very similar to this and so it’s like ‘okay, what do we do to fix this?’” Mendes said. “We haven’t had a ‘revenge game’ yet where we’re like, ‘Hey guys, we’ve got to really show what we got’ so that’ll be nice motivation.”
This story was originally published February 25, 2022 at 11:28 AM.
