Championship chemistry: Rattlers win state soccer title

May 16—The Tanner Rattlers have brought home a blue map — after playing in their first soccer state final ever May 13.

"Every year it's like we get close but something's missing," coach Matt Smith said.

The team has gotten close and made it into the playoffs more than once, but for so many on the team who worked for this for so long they couldn't hold off on celebrating.

"We even started celebrating a little early before it hit zero. I remember looking out at like 20 seconds left on the clock and we were like tearing up, hugging, because we just did something remarkable," goalie Christian Cruz said.

Cruz said they went into this season with a different mindset after losing in the playoffs last season.

Freshman Justin Moreno said he couldn't believe he was there.

"It felt like a dream," Moreno said.

Moreno's grown up playing around Tanner — his brother, Jose Moreno, is an assistant coach and played in 2016 when the Rattlers made it to the final four.

The Rattlers won 2-0 against St. Luke's Episcopal High School with goals by Moises Parra and Junior Diaz with an assist from Steven Lopez.

"I feel like the whole defense was like nervous and stuff because we had never played in the finals before. But when Moises made that goal, I feel like it gave us all more confidence and it really boosted us up and woke us up," center back Oliver Gonzalez said.

The team didn't win without adversity though. One of the captains and a leading scorer, Parra went out with an injury, according to Smith.

"I was like, 'who's going to step up? Who's going to fill his shoes?'" Smith said. "Tank came in, Jorge Mendoza, another senior, he came in and I'm telling you that was the best game he's played in his entire life."

Smith said Mendoza challenged everything in the middle. He said at one point they went three straight possessions with Mendoza starting in the midfield position. Parra going out wasn't the only challenge the team faced. With almost nine minutes left in the game the team was down a man playing 11 on 10 for the rest of the game.

There was an inadvertent whistle blown that ended up getting one of their players ejected. Osbaldo Vallarta heard the second whistle and was about to throw the ball back into play but stopped to ask what the whistle was about. He got a yellow card for stalling and then ended up ejected. Smith said he knew that stalling was a card-able offense, but this was a special situation.

"At the same time, you have to take into context who you're talking to and what's going on. You as a ref just had an inadvertent whistle and now you're going to punish a player because he doesn't speak any english and he doesn't understand what you're saying or the motions you're doing," Smith said. "Learning english is his main thing. He's in ELL classes here."

Smith said he doesn't think there was anything intentional about it, but he got his own yellow card for expressing his opinion loudly, as he put it. Once they were down a man in those last minutes, Mendoza stepped up once again.

"I feel like Tank was a really big part of that. They kept attacking and like Tank was always there to cover us on the back side because we were always down a man. So we would have to shift over and Tank would always drop down to mark that position, really stepped up big right there," Gonzalez said.

The team's chemistry was just there the whole time the boys said.

"We didn't have to wait for Coach Matt to tell us what to do now. Our players, we already knew instinctively who to go where and replace that spot," Cruz said. "The players just did it all naturally, instinctively."

The team said their seniors are the ones who really led that effort.

"The senior leadership, them instructing us and teaching us throughout the year on everything we need to do in different scenarios," Gonzalez said.

Smith said the whole season has been a true team effort.

"Everybody on the varsity team, 22 players, has at least one stat that they can put in," Smith said.

The Rattlers scored 148 goals this season, which is second in the state record, only to their own 2021 team who scored 162 goals.

The team this year only allowed 24 goals, the 2021 team allowed 47.

The championship final was the team's 16th clean sheet of the season and Cruz had five saves to keep the zero.