Soccer team ready to get season going

Soccer is back and the Grizzlies boys soccer team has been putting in the work, not only during this past week but they’ve been conditioning for the past several months.

Coach Miguel Ramirez-Ruiz has been busy coaching and refereeing soccer at the middle school level, as well as with Mariposa Soccer League.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” Ramirez-Ruiz said. “It’s been awhile since I’ve worked with the youth but it’s been nice to make connections with the players at an earlier age so they can see what we do at the high school level.”

The Grizzlies have only a varsity team this year which consists of Alejandro Alvarado, Andrew Ragsdale, Ben Jonson, Beren Westerling, Brandon Naranjo, Canyon Carter, Daniel Specht, Devon Foster, Edwin Vargas, Elias Gutierrez, Elvis Rodriguez, Emiliano Lopez, Emmet Malisch, Guadalupe Figueroa, Jhovanny Marquez, Joseph McGrady, Keegan Reig, Levi Evans, Noah Eastwood, Noah Wiley, Owen Arnold, Sawyer Newsome, Xander Bilodeau, Zander Standen, Karl Wall and Dominik Moll.

Seniors on the team this year are Jonson, Figueroa, Gutierrez, Westerling, Rieg,Wall and Arnold.

“I’m looking forward to getting better at defense,” said Arnold.

Figueroa wants to work on “better ball placement.”

The seniors are looking forward to continuing working hard to earn more wins this season.

“We can help our teammates by getting to know each other so we can play better as a team,” Westerling said.

The team has been conditioning since September since there isn’t a dead period anymore for non-football sports.

“It’s been awesome to see the buy in,” the coach said.

“It’s tough when we haven’t won in over a year but we’re hoping to change that this year.”

Soccer has been huge deal in Mariposa over the past couple of years since the inception of Mariposa Soccer League.

“A lot of the freshman have been with MSL and they’ve been playing for most of the year,” the coach continued.

“We have a really talented bunch with probably the most skill we’ve had in quite a while with the addition two new players, our returning players and all of the incoming freshmen.”

With the large number of freshmen, the program is only continuing to grow.

“We’ll have the freshmen on varsity this year,” said Ramirez-Ruiz.

“They’ll continue to improve and hopefully next season we’ll be able to have a JV team with around 10 potential sophomores ready to go.”

The team is looking forward to competing and seeing all of the hard work they’ve put in.

Schedule at a glance
Nov. 19 – MCHS at Minarets, 3 p.m.
Nov. 25- MCHS at Yosemite, 5 p.m.
Dec. 3 – MCHS at Stone Ridge Christian, 5 p.m.
Dec. 9 – MCHS at Gustine, 5 p.m.
Dec. 12 – MCHS at Big Valley Christian, 5 p.m.
Jan. 3 – MCHS vs. Gustine, 5 p.m.