The Buhach Colony High girls soccer team made history on Monday night as they became the first team in program history to win a Central California Conference championship since the school opened in 2001. The Thunder defeated Merced 7-0 to earn a share of the CCC title with El Capitan with both teams finishing 9-1 in conference.

 

Buhach Colony earned a share of the championship by winning their last eight matches in a row, including erasing a 1-0 deficit to El Capitan and defeating the Gauchos 2-1 on Jan. 28.” t's been a long time coming for us,” said Buhach Colony coach Richard Howard, whose team improved to 16-7 overall. “It came back down to our family-first mentality we established with this team. There isn’t a selfish player on the team right now, we play for each other. Our philosophy is we just go out there and give it all for each other. The team really demonstrated that tonight, we played together. It wasn't one person dominating tonight. That's what really has held us together this whole season.”

 

Five different Thunder players scored goals in the victory against Merced with Sofia Alcorn and Sophia Macias both scoring twice. Taylor Martin, Emily Gallegos and Nalani Walstad all scored one goal each. Chisa Wood and Julissa Duran both recorded two assists.

After coming close to winning the first soccer championship last year and finishing in second place, the Thunder players are excited to finally add the first year to the soccer banner. We've been working towards it since we were freshmen, so to finally get there is awesome. We’ve been so close for so long. We have a great group of girls, so it feels really special to do it with this group.”

 

Howard said he and assistant coach Ycela Ochoa have really stressed a team-first approach. That approach helped after the early CCC loss to El Capitan. “It's definitely something that we had to work hard for,” Howard said. “We let those losses really fuel us the rest of the season. I tell the girls, hey, you know, let that sting. Let's remember that every time we step on the field again, we remember that loss and let that fuel that fire to come out. We’ve been able to carry that into those eight wins.”

 

“Honestly, this is really special,” Alcorn said. “Rick and Ycela have done a great job with making a family out of all of us. And I think that this year especially, we have a really, really tight bond. So we've definitely been waiting for it.”

 

The Thunder have earned their way to the top of the CCC with a balance of seniors and young players. Alcorn leads the team with 20 goals this season to go along with 11 assists. Fellow senior, Duran, leads the team with 14 assists. Freshmen Faith Vierra and Siana Ingram are second and third on the team in goals with 11 and seven, respectively.

 

The Thunder now must turn their attention to the Sac-Joaquin Section playoffs, which begin on Friday. The Sac-Joaquin Section is scheduled to release the playoff brackets on Wednesday. “We have got to stay focused and flip the page,” Alcorn said.” Yes, we won CCC, but we have a bigger goal than that, so we have to stay focused. We can still fine tune the little things that we need to fix and hopefully come out on top.”

Shawn Jansen is the MUHSD Program Manager Digital Media. He can be reached at Sjansen@muhsd.org.