A pair of games were on the schedule for Escalon’s soccer squads this week, the varsity splitting contests with Bret Harte and Manteca.

“We had Bret Harte at home and we took a 4-1 win, scored three goals in the first half,” said coach Paul Silva.

Those three scores came from Ulises Ramirez (Juan Vazquez assist), Aldo Guzman (Everardo Peralta assist), and Rafael Aranda (Juan Vazquez assist). In the second half, Chapman Mello found the net off an assist from Damian Parocua. Fabricio Gallo had six saves in goal.

“It was a pretty straightforward game,” noted Silva. “We had them on their heels in the first half, we created a lot of opportunities.”

Silva said in the second half, he did a lot of switching up of player positions and got all players into the contest. The Cougars controlled the game and put the win away.

Thursday, Manteca came to town and it was a 6-2 loss.

“We gave up three goals in a 10-minute span in the first half,” Silva said. “We were down 4-2 at the half and both our goals came on penalty kicks, both scored by Juan Vazquez.”

Despite the loss, Silva said his team stepped up and played a tough second half against the Buffaloes, finally running out of gas.

“They scored their final two goals in the last 10 minute when we were worn out,” Silva explained. “Hopefully we’ll learn from a game like that.”

The team was scheduled to continue preseason action with a game Tuesday, Sept. 16 (after press time) against Venture Academy.

Junior Varsity

A 3-2 victory for the young Cougars against Bret Harte was followed by a shutout loss to Manteca, 5-0. In a busy week, the JV boys headed to the Gregori Tournament for Friday and Saturday games and had a tough go of it, running into some higher division, larger school opponents. The team started off with a close loss to Beyer, then fell in a 7-0 final to host Gregori. They closed out the weekend with a tough loss to Merced but will look to rebound with non-league action this week, hoping to get back into the win column.