So close, yet so far.
A historical journey for the Watsonville High boys soccer team came to a heart-rending end Saturday afternoon.
The No. 1 Wildcatz came up short on bringing home a California Interscholastic Federation title following a stunning 1-0 loss to No. 6 Los Alamitos High in the inaugural Division III state final.
“I’m feeling kind of sad, kind of mad at the same time,” Watsonville senior Diego Guillen said. “This whole week, we’ve been messing around in practice. It’s been a long season, everyone’s kind of tired.”
Guillen did the best to get his teammates on the same page but the end result did not go as planned.
“We were not really giving it our all,”Guillen said. “It was the heat, a little bit, but we can’t complain about that.”
Watsonville’s defense got caught slipping in the 52nd minute, allowing Carter Coleman to score the game’s lone goal for the Griffins.
“It’s insane, emotionally high,” Coleman said. “Just happy for the team, first-ever championship in school history.”
Coleman said it came down to team chemistry, and the fact that they weren’t fazed on how much higher Watsonville was ranked than them.
According to the Max Preps website, the Southern Region champion Griffins were ranked No. 123 in California going into Saturday’s match.
The Northern Region champion ‘Catz this week moved up five spots to No. 5 in the state, and are nationally ranked at No. 19.
“We actually do visualization for every match,” Coleman said. “We can’t think about what rank they are. We got to go in, play our game and just play.”
It was a tightly contested match as anticipated as both teams were scoreless going into halftime.
The ‘Catz dominated the possession game in the second half, nearly scoring twice.
They continued to stretch the right side, attempting to get the wings free for an open cross pass to the center but failed to finish in the 18-yard box.
“We had the ball down there and we were controlling it, we just couldn’t get it to the point we needed to,” Watsonville head coach Roland Hedgpeth said.
Watsonville’s momentum slowed down as the game clock continued to tick away.
They were also missing some key players on the pitch due to minor injuries, including junior Damien Moreno, who sat out for most of the second half.
Yet, they had ample opportunities to score on five corner kick chances near the end.
“I think a lot of us were too confident at first,” Guillen said. “When they scored the goal, we tried to put the pressure on, but it was too late.”
And it was the Griffins who walked off the field victorious with their first-ever state championship in the school’s history.
“We were proud of them all the way around,” Hedgpeth said. “If you don’t feel bad, it means you didn’t care. But on the other hand, keep your heads up.”
There’s no doubt these ‘Catz have a lot to be proud of, especially after bringing home the first-ever NorCal championship in the program’s history.
It was also the first for Hedgpeth, 83, who won his 11th Central Coast Section championship while leading the ‘Catz to their 13th title during the 2025-26 campaign.
Watsonville also clinched the Pacific Coast Athletic League Mission Division crown with a 11-0-1 record in the league standings. They finished with a 22-2-2 overall record.
“I could go back and say, I know we have a lot of other teams that could have done this,” Hedgpeth said. “That doesn’t make any difference now. We’re talking about this game because every team is a little different. They’ve got their own little characteristics, and we go from there.”
