Hood River Valley Eagles are 2014 Class 5A state champs

In a thrilling end to a perfect season, the Hood River Valley High School varsity boys soccer team defeated Woodburn 2-0 Saturday to claim the 2014 OSAA 5A state championship and finish the season with an unblemished 18-0 record.

Travis Running (9), #00

Marco Cuevas (11), #1

Danny Romero (12), #2

Manuel Mozqueda (12), #3

Uriel Torrez (12), #5

Joel Garcia (11), #6

Marcos Trejo (12), #7

Mario Sandoval (11), #8

Andres Baeza (11), #9

Gio Magana (11), #10

Alex Gutierrez (12), #11

Angel Sonato (9), #12

Johnny Villafana (12), #16

Luis Perez (12), #17

Noah Noteboom (11), #18

Antonio Bustos (11), #19

Jaime Frias (12), #20

Diego Rueda (12), #21

Aldo Muro (12), #22

Noe Magana (10), #23

Coach Jaime Rivera

Coach Joe Dolan

After an electrifying but scoreless first half, Gio Magana – later named HRV’s player of the game – scored in the 68th minute and Alex Gutierrez added a security goal in the 76th minute to seal the win. Goalies Marco Cuevas and Travis Running teamed-up for the shutout; Cuevas started in the goal but was carried off the field midway through the second half with a knee injury and Running kept the shutout alive.

Following the game and a brief awards presentation – held under sunny but brisk conditions - players were mobbed by the enormous group of fans, friends and family who made the trip to Hillsboro Stadium to support the team. Upon arrival to Hood River, those returning from the game were met by several local police and fire vehicles, which provided the caravan with a boisterous escort through town on their way home.

“The feeling is pretty hard to describe,” coach Jaime Rivera said. “After the game I just stood back and watched the boys celebrate. Those boys worked so hard and put so much into this season, and getting to stand back and watch them experience a moment like that – something they truly earned and will remember for the rest of their lives – was pretty special. It also felt pretty good knowing Woodburn had to watch all of that too.”

In what has developed into a heated rivalry over the past four seasons, the Eagles denied Woodburn a state title for the second time in two years after the Mid-Willamette Conference powerhouse claimed three straight state championships. Last season HRV knocked the Bulldogs out of the playoffs with an overtime win in the semifinals before losing 2-0 to Summit in the finals. The year prior, Woodburn narrowly defeated Hood River in the semis and went on to win the title.

“We knew it was going to be a physical game,” Rivera said. “We felt like their game plan was to rough us up and get into our heads. At halftime one of the things we talked about was how to deal with that. We saw what kind of game the referees were calling, so we decided to change it up and give them a taste of their own medicine.”

The Hood River Valley boys soccer team wants to thank the community for coming out and cheering us on every game. Rain or shine, hot or cold, you guys have been filling the stands since day one. We greatly appreciate all of your support, because we believe that is one of the reasons we have made it back to Hillsboro. We consider the HRVHS Boys Soccer fans as part of the team. While we do our job on the field, our fans do their job in the stands by cheering over the opponent’s crowd and keeping us motivated. We would also like to thank all of the businesses and people who have donated money to the program. All of the donations have benefited the team a lot. The donations have helped us expand our training equipment, and have treated us with some great gear for the cold weather. Having our community come out and support us has kept us on track to reach our goal of bringing home the state championship. We would like to thank everyone for all of the time and money they have invested into our team.

Sincerely,

Uriel Torres and the HRVHS boys soccer team

Another difference between the first and second halves, Rivera said, was nerves. “The boys seemed pretty relaxed leading up to the game, but once we got started I think nerves did play a part. We were making some mistakes that we don’t normally make and giving Woodburn chances that they didn’t earn. Going into halftime, we felt like we were giving them a chance to stay in the game.”

The head-to-head battle ensued for much of the second half. Woodburn’s No. 1 player and biggest scoring threat, Dagoberto Diaz, had a target on his back all game, and for much of the game senior Danny Romero was in charge of shutting him down, which he did quite effectively.

“It was mainly a mind game for me,” Romero said. “I had to win mentally first. I just kept thinking, ‘this guy is not going to get past me, no matter what,’ and I went for every ball one hundred percent. He (Diaz) is a really good player and our defense did a very good job of shutting him down. I couldn’t be happier with how things turned out. We had a game plan all season, we stuck to it and it paid off.”

At the 55-minute mark, Diaz had a golden scoring opportunity off a fast break, but his shot went just wide as Cuevas lunged out and cut off the angle. In a pivotal moment for HRV, Cuevas injured his knee on the play and had to be carried off of the field, leaving freshman backup goalie Travis Running in charge of the net.

Running came off the bench with a clutch performance to keep Diaz and the Bulldogs scoreless. In a key save, Running challenged Diaz in an one-one-one play that both cleared the ball out of the box and sent Diaz flying to the turf on his backside.

About a minute later, on a clear from HRV’s defensive end, senior captain Uriel Torrez made a long, arching pass to Magana, who had pushed forward to get into scoring territory.

“We don’t like playing the long ball very often, but with Gio, any time we can get him to move up ahead of our front line and into a one-V-one or even one-V-two situation, that’s a pretty good situation for us,” Rivera said.

Magana met the pass in stride, finessed the ball to his right before it hit the ground and finished with a volley past a diving Woodburn goalie.

“They were an aggressive team and wanted to win really badly,” Magana said. “We knew we were going to have to deal with it. We were quicker than them and that’s why we started playing the long ball … I couldn’t believe it when I scored. We knew this was our year and we just kept fighting after the half. It was a dream come true. And the fans were awesome. We couldn’t have done it without them.”

Not going down without a fight, Woodburn answered HRV’s goal immediately with a breakaway on their offensive end in which Running and Aldo Muro teamed up to make the stop, but not without giving up a foul in the box that resulted in a penalty kick. Woodburn’s Irineo Guzman took the PK, which deflected off the inside of the crossbar and back to his feet. Running charged the ball, cut off Guzman’s angle and the rebound shot went over the goal.

Gutierrez’s goal came off another long ball, this time kicked by Magana. In a hustle play, Gutierrez came blazing out of the midfield in pursuit of the ball and caught it just as a Woodburn defender attempted a clear. Gutierrez deflected the clear for the security goal.

“That’s just sheer determination,” Rivera said of the play. “We knew their back line was getting shaky and it was only a matter of time before we started to break through.”

As an alumni of the HRVHS soccer program (1995-1999), Rivera took a personal interest bringing respectability to a program that he felt was overlooked and underrated at the state level, and after this weekend he can happily check that goal off of his list.

“When I took over the program five years ago, one of my goals was to bring Hood River soccer the recognition it deserved,” Rivera said. “We’ve had some great teams and great coaches in the past who paved the way; we just didn’t have the consistency that we do now. To be honest, we knew from the beginning of the season that we had all the pieces this year for a championship team, the challenge was just putting it all together the right way. It feels pretty good knowing that the path we chose and the steps we took were the right ones.”