Pumas grow into contenders

The girls on the I.V. Pumas Premier FC U-15 team know what it feels like to get blown out on the soccer field. It was just about two years ago when the group of girls was taking its lumps and losing games by as much as 12-0.

Now the team has advanced to Saturday’s round of 16 in the prestigious Cal South State Cup. With just four more wins they will have reached the pinnacle of their division and bring the cup to the Imperial Valley for the first time ever with a girls’ team.

The Pumas advanced to the second round of State Cup with a 2-1 record in the pool play opening round in Lancaster on March 31 and April 1. Saturday they will take on the Necaxa Xplosion from the Los Angeles area for a berth in Sunday’s quarterfinals. Two more wins on Sunday and the Pumas will have earned a berth in the State Cup final, set for April 22 in San Bernardino.

“It’s been a long road to get here, but the girls have just gotten better and better each and every step of the way,” said Robert Osoria, coach of the girls’ U15 Pumas and director of operations for the I.V. Pumas Premier FC. “When we started playing club soccer we were getting beaten up but these girls showed amazing determination and kept playing and kept getting better and I think we have a good shot at winning this thing.”

The Pumas are led by team MVP Karina Soto, captains Paulina Pantoja and Baylee Vincent and defensive specialist Stephanie Vasquez.

“When we started a couple years ago, we didn’t know each other and didn’t talk and we didn’t know what to do. We got beat a lot,” said Vincent, a 14-year-old freshman at Central Union High School. “Now, over the years, we are beating those teams that beat us in the beginning.”

The I.V. Pumas are part of the larger Chula Vista Pumas organization and features four teams based in the Imperial Valley, three girls’ teams and one boys’ squad. The girls’ teams compete in the U15, U13 and U10 divisions while the boys’ team plays in the U8 division.

“There is such a tremendous amount of talent here in the Imperial Valley, we just saw the need to keep these talented kids playing year-round so they could stay competitive,” said Osoria, 41, a 1989 graduate of Central. “We want to offer the kids the opportunity to get exposure and be seen at the highest level, that way these kids will have the opportunity to play at the collegiate level. That’s ultimately the end game for us, to get these kids into college by playing the sport they love.”

The Pumas U15 team played in the San Diego-based Presidio League the past two years. After a second-place finish in 2010, they went undefeated in 2011 and won the league crown.

“We have a good team and we work very hard,” said Pantoja, a 14-year-old freshman at Central. “We’ve been practicing hard and getting way better. You can see it’s a huge difference from where we were a couple years ago.”

Any players or coaches interested in joining the local Pumas’ club can visit their Web site atwww.IVPumasPremierfc.org

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