Vista boys' soccer pulls together to win section title

After a 5-0 start to the season, Vista del Lago's varsity boys' soccer team went winless in their next five games, playing to a tie once and losing four, including the fifth game of the stretch, 6-0, against Rio Americano in their league opening game. From there, the Eagles finished the season with 11 wins and two ties, including a 2-0 win over previously unbeaten and No. 1 seeded Patterson in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division III championship game Tuesday night at Turlock High School. The Eagles scored both goals in the opening 10 minutes or so; both scored by outside backs in the flow of play; Aadi Johri and William Wong with assists from James Gaffney and James Shull, respectively. "Our game plan worked to a 'T'," Vista coach Grant Tyler said. "Patterson had immense speed and liked to play balls over the top, so we set up our back line deeper so they couldn't play over the top." The Eagles, battered by injuries all season, never played one game with their entire lineup healthy, including the championship game when one of their best players, Colin Veirs, was out injured, not to mention leading goal scorer Collin Zugnoni, who had missed several games already and has long since been out for the season. "We did it with a lot of band aids," Tyler said of winning the section title. "We had guys out injured all season so I'd say we did it collectively as a team. Everyone stepped up. "In that Rio game, we had six starters out. That was the last game where we had quite a few guys out and from there we started getting some guys back. We were really short-handed for awhile, and even though we suffered some losses that hurt us in the rankings, we knew we'd be better once we got some of our guys back." Vista finished the season with a 16-4-3 record.