In the team’s first year, Hollister is one game from a league
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The Hollister 35+ All-Star soccer team is heading to the championship game of the Pajaro Valley Veteran’s Soccer League after winning the semifinal playoff game.
In its first year of existence, the team has put together a record of 7-4-3, playing other All-Star teams from the area. There are six teams from Watsonville and one from Santa Cruz in the league.
Each week the team gets together Thursday nights at Rancho San Justo to practice. Many of the 18 players have played soccer before, but some haven’t played for awhile, said Hollister League President Carlos Vargas.
“All the guys here known each other for 20 years when they played together,” Vargas said. “We practice hard because we need to get in shape. We have a very competitive team.”
On Saturday in the playoffs held in Watsonville, Hollister eliminated Watsonville. The game was tied at 3-3 before Hollister made all five of its penalty kicks, while Watsonville missed one.
Hollister took a 2-0 lead to start the game, but Watsonville came back to tie the score. Hollister scored another goal, but Watsonville came back against to tie in the final minute of play.
“It was a nice way to end it because we all worked really hard to win the game,” Vargas said. “It was pretty tough. They are all pretty good teams. Their team has been playing together for a long long time – about 10 years. I’ve known all their guys for about 25 years when I played with them.”
Israel Quintero scored two goals for the Hollister All-Star team, and Robert Mancera added a goal.
In penalty kicks, Francisco Szifneros, Luis Juarez, Alfredo Silva, Quintero and Vargas made their shots.
The championship game will be either this Saturday or the following Saturday and could be hosted in Hollister, Vargas said. The meeting to determine the dates is Thursday night.
Hollister will play the winner of the Watsonville and Santa Cruz. The teams finished their game on Tuesday that was suspended because of darkness tied at 2-2 with 15 minutes to go.
