Warriors best Zillah 13-0
CALEB PEREZ | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 1 year AGO
Diego Perez has been a strong leader in the Warriors’ success this season.
CALEB PEREZ/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
Franco Perez moving the ball to Zillah’s side of the field.
Icker Lopez keeps the ball out of his opponent's possession.
Alvaro Rodriguez steals possession of the ball and makes his way to the opposing side of the field.
Alvaro Rodriguez steals possession of the ball and makes his way to the opposing side of the field.
Christian Anaya goes head-to-head in a battle for the ball against a player from Zillah.
MATTAWA — The Wahluke Warriors soccer team earned a 13-0 victory against Zillah on Friday continuing their successful season and putting their record at 8-2.
“I think we did really good,” said Warriors player Diego Perez. “We had really good energy and I think that’s what really helped us.”
The Warriors took a strong lead ending the first half 9-0 and continued to control the field as they went into the second half putting up four more points by the end of the game.
“(It) was a solid game, solid performance for us,” said Warriors head coach Cele Lopez. “We tried different things to attack, and it worked out pretty good for us.”
Lopez said the team did very good on transitions where they would be able to assess a situation on when they should attack versus when they should go on the defensive. Improving their transitioning has been something they had been working on leading into this game.
Their defensive front put up a strong performance against Zillah stealing possession multiple times and holding their opponents to no scores by the end of the game. In the past they had made simple mistakes that led to goals, but in this game, they had cut those down, said the coach.
“I think the whole team as a unit looks pretty solid,” he said.
The team is currently tied for third with Royal City in the South Central Athletic Conference, both with a league record of 6-1.
Their success so far can be attributed to the players’ desire to win, Lopez said. They have been showing increasing effort levels and a growing hunger for greatness.
“(It’s) spreading, a couple players are hungry and they’re talking to everyone and it’s just spreading like fire on the team,” he said. “We can give a whole speech as coaches, but when it comes out from a teammate, sometimes you feel it better.”
Lopez said one of the key players in motivating and pushing the team forward is Perez who is a senior this year.
“Just by the way he plays, his body language says more than him talking on the field,” said the coach. “Players see him trying hard and everybody wants to play the same way.”
The warriors are now looking towards their game tonight after a weekend of rest. They hope to get everybody healthy and bring back players who were out on injury, he said.
Lopez said he feels confident in the team’s abilities moving forward in the season given everything he has been seeing so far. They will be spending their time honing their skills and preparing for whatever lies ahead.
“There’s no easy teams here in the league, we just have to be prepared and treat everyone with respect and play hard in every single game,” said Lopez. “We need to be ready for whoever’s coming.”
The Warriors will be on the road tonight against Wapato at 6 p.m.
Wahluke Roster
Name, Jersey
John Prieto, 1
Leonardo Torres, 2
Jan Hernandez, 3
Hector Contreras, 4
Alexander Adame, 5
Alex Acevedo, 6
Diego Perez, 7
Ethan Moreno, 8
Christian Anaya, 9
Alvaro Rodriguez, 10
Baldrick Gomez, 11
Rafael Rodriguez, 12
Luis Corona, 13
Alan Arroyo, 14
Christopher Barajas-Ortiz 15
Icker Lopez, 17
Alonzo Saavedra, 19
Franco Perez, 21
Alexis Zamora, 25
Franco Perez moving the ball to Zillah’s side of the field.
Icker Lopez keeps the ball out of his opponent's possession.
Alvaro Rodriguez steals possession of the ball and makes his way to the opposing side of the field.
Alvaro Rodriguez steals possession of the ball and makes his way to the opposing side of the field.
Christian Anaya goes head-to-head in a battle for the ball against a player from Zillah.ARTICLES BY CALEB PEREZ
BBCC eyes budget and spring enrollment
MOSES LAKE — During Big Bend Community College’s April 30 board meeting the college President, Sarah Thompson Tweedy, shared the counts for spring enrollment and Full Time Enrollment numbers for Spring of 2026 along with updates on where the budget sits. “We still have some work to do in terms of systematically going through our expenses and seeing how much of the requests that we have before us, how many of those we can put off,” said Thompson Tweedy. “There’s the opportunity to close that gap by reducing our expenses, but the challenge is, we’ve also had some expenses go up.” As of April 15, 2026 the spring quarter head count was up nearly 18% from 2025, but total FTE’s and state-funded FTEs were down 6.9% and 11.6% respectively, according to the board agenda.
Huskies best Tigers in OT
Othello moves on to second round of districts
OTHELLO — The Othello Huskies (11-5) extended their postseason push after earning a close 2-1 victory in overtime against the Ephrata Tigers (7-10) in the first round of the 2A district tournament. The game winning goal came in second overtime when Othello sophomore Samuel Marroquin knocked the ball into the back of the net. “It was a tough game, Ephrata is definitely a tough opponent, but I feel like we had prepared well for the week,” said Marroquin. “We definitely had a good game plan and we just gave everything. We knew if this was our last game we were going to go out with a bang.” The game was a tight battle from the very beginning as the Tigers and Huskies battled under the hot sun. Othello scored in the first half and maintained their lead in throughout, going into halftime 1-0.
BASIN SPORTS SCHEDULE: May 4-11, 2026
COLUMBIA BASIN — The postseason has begun for high school athletes in our area with teams gearing up to compete against the best of the best. Check out where our local teams are heading this week.