Echo/Stanfield enters second season in BMC soccer
Published 9:13 pm Friday, September 3, 2021
- Echo’s Mayela De La Fuente works the ball upfield during a home game Friday, Sept. 3, 2021, with Trout Lake.
ECHO — It’s never easy to start a team from scratch. It’s even harder when half of your players have never played the game before.
Echo/Stanfield girls soccer coach Ayleen Sandoval has gone through the growing pains with her team, but now that the Cougars are in their second season, things are starting to fall into place.
“Last year, we started with seven players, then it got up to eight,” Sandoval said. “This season, we have 12 girls. The standard is 11 girls on the field, and seven is the minimum. Teams were great last year to play us 7-on-7. The girls are adjusting to 11 girls on the field.”
When the schools were trying to get the program off the ground last year, they needed a coach and Sandoval was approached about applying. She did, and got the job.
“I have been playing since I was 3 years old,” said Sandoval, a 2016 graduate of Hermiston High School. “I played in high school and I was on the first women’s team at Blue Mountain. I played defender, but I also played a couple of games at goalie at Blue Mountain.”
On her team, Sandoval has Morgan Gaines, McKenzie Rose, Keaton Nasario, Emily Hancock, and sisters Anaitza and Nayeli Mendez, who had experience playing the game before last season.
“Pretty much half the team has never played before,” Sandoval said. “When I first saw them, they said they had never played before, but it looked like they had. They are athletes. I love the work ethic they have.
They are willing to try something new, and you can teach them the right way.”
That includes the rules of the game.
“The hardest part at first was trying to teach the girls who had never played before all the rules,” Sandoval said. “They learned really quickly and they played great in their first game.”
The Cougars were 0-5-2 last year, and Sandoval is encouraged with the improvement her team has shown since spring.
“Last year to this year, I have seen tremendous growth in the girls,” she said.
The Cougars, who play in the Blue Mountain Conference with Riverside, Umatilla, Four Rivers, Irrigon and Nyssa, are off to an 0-2 start to the season. They host McLoughlin at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 9, in Echo.
