VIDEO: Mountain View Soccer Championship Recap

Okay, today I went out to Warren High School over in Downey and caught the CIF Southern Section Division 6 Boys' Soccer Championship between the Mid-Valley's Mountain View Vikings and the First-Year school out of the High Desert, Oak Hills. My colleague, Juan Carlos Salas, was with me and we both took in an emotionally charged CIF Soccer final.

It was so not because of who was playing, a first-year school against the defending champion, but for who wasn't there. As everyone is familiar by now, back in December just before the New Year hit, former Mountain View Administrator, Bobby Salcedo, a very well-loved assistant coach on the football team and a big booster of the soccer team, was murdered along with five other men in the Mexican town of Gomez Palacios. It was another in a long line of horrific murders that have become synonymous with the Mexican drug wars. Salcedo's death was especially hard on the school and community, as he had been elected to the El Monte School Board just a few weeks before his tragic murder.

As has been the case, the Vikings wore black armbands in his memory and dedicated the game to his memory, going so far as to say a prayer for him before the match began and then shouting his name towards the sky as they broke their huddle. While the rains had come earlier in the day, delaying the start of the Notre Dame-South Torrance Girls' Soccer Final (Forgive me for not knowing what Division it was), but by the time the game kicked off a half-hour behind schedule the rain had moved on.

It went scoreless for the first half, although not for a lack of trying. Six times the Vikings took shots at the net, but Bulldogs goalkeeper Broderic Capps managed to stave off the scoring until seven minutes into the second half when he watched a ball hit by Jesus Mariscal riccocheted off of one of the Bullodgs trying to defend the goal. So with a 1-0 lead, the Vikings opened the flood gates and 10 minutes later, Pablo Tellez took a corner kick and re-directed it into the net.

But Oak Hills was not going to go down easily as Miguel Rivera cut the lead in half with a goal in the 69th minute, but it was all the Bulldogs would get as the Viking defense stiffened up, as the seconds counted down, the stands erupted in cheers at the Vikings ran the clock out.

So congratulations to the Vikings on a great season and for getting their second straight title, but I know this one was for "Coach Bobby," as the kids put it.