Atwater soccer remains unbeaten with big second half against Pitman

Last season, the Atwater High School boys soccer team set new heights by accomplishing things that had never been done at the school.

The Falcons have bigger goals this season.

Atwater continued its remarkable run with a 5-1 win over Pitman on Tuesday afternoon at Falcon Field that put a stranglehold on a second consecutive Central California Conference championship and extended the Falcons’ unbeaten streak to 23 games to start the season.

“I feel like we’re taking this season more serious,” said Falcons senior Eduardo Cebrero, who recorded a hat trick against the Pride. “We know what we did last year. We know what we can do this year. In practice we do have fun, but when we step on the field for games, we’re much more serious.”

The Falcons finished 24-3-3 last year, winning a conference title and earning the top seed in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division II playoffs. But a 1-0 loss to Vintage in the semifinals has this year’s group motivated to finish the job.

Atwater blitzed Pitman in the second half, outscoring the Pride (14-5-3, 8-3-1 CCC) 4-0 in the final 40 minutes.

“We needed to stay the course,” said Falcons coach Jimmy Brewer, whose team remained unbeaten at 20-0-3 overall and 10-0-2 in the CCC. “Without being cocky, we just have this confidence that it’s hard for teams to play with us if our effort is there. It’s tough for teams to play with us 40 minutes because of our depth.”

The Pride scored first as it caught the Falcons in transition. Miguel Galdamez passed the ball up the right sideline to Jonathan Galdamez, who then crossed the ball in front of the goal to a wide-open Brandon Pineda for an easy goal in the 17th minute.

Cebrero tied it in the 32nd minute as he cut across the middle and fired a shot from about 20 yards that found the corner of the net.

The Falcons then turned up the pressure in the second half.

“The goal wasn’t to turn up the pressure,” Cebrero said. “The goal was to fix all our mistakes from the first half. Our problem was the counterattack. Every good team that hurts us counters against us. We were slow coming back on defense. We had to fix those errors.”

The Falcons’ shots also started to find the net.

Christian Fuentes received a pass from Christian Olguin in the middle of the field. Fuentes looked up and saw he was open for a shot and fired from 30 yards away to give the Falcons a 2-1 lead in the 47th minute.

“Christian has a nice shot and he’s hit a couple goals like that from distance,” Brewer said. “It was nice to get those early goals. I think it relaxed the team a bit.”

The Falcons tacked on another goal shortly after as Fuentes booted a free kick from 39 yards out into the box to an open Jonathan Escobedo, who deposited the ball into the net for a 3-1 lead.

Cebrero added the finishing touches, scoring on a rebound in front of the net in the 76th minute and then scoring in transition as he dribbled past Pitman goalie Jesus Nunez for his third goal of the game in the 78th minute.

The Falcons finish this week with a match against Merced on Wednesday in which they can wrap up the conference title and then head to Carmichael on Friday for a game against perennial section power Jesuit (16-2-1).

“A lot of times, we go up there (to Jesuit) and we’re hoping to be able to hold our own,” Brewer said. “I get the impression with these guys, they believe they can beat a team of their caliber.”

Merced 2, Turlock 0 at Turlock – Vince Lyon and Adriyan Garcia each scored a goal as the Bears improved to 4-4-4 in the CCC. Adrian Lomeli recorded an assist and Saad Sohail stopped four shots.

This story was originally published October 20, 2015 at 8:14 PM with the headline "Atwater soccer remains unbeaten with big second half against Pitman."