Boys soccer: Mesa wins PCL

Steve Virgen

IRVINE - This was their moment.

Ten of the 18 players on the Costa Mesa High boys soccer team huddled

arm around arm and began to bounce, shouting and cheering with joy.

“PCL Champs! PCL Champs,” they yelled.

Mustangs Coach Eugene Day looked from a distance and smiled then

giggled as he said, “We’re all by ourselves.”

University and Northwood played to a scoreless tie Friday. which means

the Mustangs are sole champions of the Pacific Coast League, Mesa’s

first-ever league championship.

Not since 1991 have the Mustangs earned a playoff berth. And, Day says

his team is ready to make a run in the CIF Southern Section Division IV

playoffs. His confidence started even before Mesa’s championship season

began.

“Three quarters of this team won league as freshmen with me,” said Day

who is in his first year with the varsity squad after coaching the

frosh/soph team for the past five years. “Last year, they were co-champs

for the junior varsity. They’re basically playing against the same kids.”

Irwin Salas, Stephen Thomas, Ryan Denman, Socrates Cruz, Mike

Gardiner, Brian Zing, and Billy Lund were frosh/soph PCL champions in

1999 and then junior varsity co-champions in 2000. This season, they

added an extra push that the seniors needed, Day said.

“If Mike Dunn was here he would be proud of these kids,” Day said of

Mesa’s former coach. “He started this program when it was dying. I’ve

been with him for the longest, but I have to give credit to him. I came

in to help him out and shape what there is today. I kind of wish he was

here.”

Six years ago, the Mustangs’ soccer program was in shambles. Day said

his frosh/soph team had just nine players, the junior varsity had 10 and

the varsity suited up 13.

But, Dunn and Day built the program in numbers and in talent. The

results began to show in 1999. And, this season, the frosh/soph team had

30 boys join and finished second in the PCL. The junior varsity team

finished as co-champions of the PCL with Uni after the Trojans tied with

Northwood Friday.

For Day, it has been a pleasure to see the growth since his days as a

frosh/soph coach five years ago.

“I was the griller,” Day said of coaching frosh/soph. “I would shake

and bake them and make sure that they understood if you want to make

varsity you have to be a sprinter, you have to be thinking, you have to

be strong and you have got to want it.”

This season, the Mustangs wanted it. They posted seven shutouts in

league, using a defense that created offensive opportunities.

After the Uni-Northwood tie, Mesa left victorious.

“It’s a relief that we don’t have to share it with another school,”

said Salas who is a junior. “Especially Uni.”

If the Trojans had won, the Mustangs would have been co-champions with

Uni.

Salas admitted, the players did not get in tune with Day at first.

“Coach Day turned out to be a really surprising coach,” Salas said.

“We didn’t think he was a good coach at first. We had some tough times,

but we got through it all. Those tough times became good times and we

just had a blast this season.”

Said Louis Day, a senior and third-year varsity player, “This year we

have more discipline. It was much more strict.”

He also said the team’s intensity led to its victories.

Eugene Day said his Mustangs began to believe in themselves during the

Magnolia Tournament in December. He said the discovery was the highlight

of the season.

“They met expectations,” Eugene Day said, perishing the thought that

his team overachieved. “If they do well in CIF, that’s going to be the

exception. I expected them to do well, but not maybe win league. But they

did it.”