TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

McFARLAND -- Second place. Uh-uh. Not good enough. From the very beginning of the season it was championship or bust for the McFarland boys soccer team.

That single-minded approach paid off for the Cougars as they defeated No. 4 Tranquillity 3-1 in the Central Section Division VI championship game Tuesday.

Seniors Miguel Lastra, Vincente Diaz and Martin Labrada each scored first-half goals for second-seeded McFarland, which never trailed.

Afterward, McFarland gathered in a circle near midfield chanting and dancing while its coach Jose Gonzalez watched, still trying to catch his breath from all the excitement.

"It's the greatest feeling I've ever had," Gonzalez said. "The kids worked so hard and they did it."

The section championship is the first in boys soccer for the Cougars, who lost 2-1 to Mendota last year in the title game.

"Last year we made it to final and we lost and this year we wanted it more than last year," Lastra said. "Everybody tried their best and we got it."

McFarland started off slow, as Tranquillity (11-10-2) controlled most of the action for the first 15 minutes.

But with several hundred loud and spirited fans urging them on, the Cougars (22-5-2) got rolling midway through the first half.

In the 18th minute, Lastra chipped the ball over a defender's head to himself and then raced past two other Tigers before firing a low shot across his body into the far corner of the net.

Three minutes later, after Tranquillity tied it on a Fernando Gutierrez header, Diaz put the Cougars up for good with his seventh goal of the season.

The play was setup by the Cougars' 40-goal scorer Alex Mendez blasted a hard shot that Tranquillity goal keeper Hugo Berber was only able to get a hand on, deflecting the ball back in front of the goal.

Diaz quickly pounced on the scoring opportunity, hitting a bouncer that split a group of several defenders on its way to finding the back of the net.

Late in the opening half Labrada made it 3-1 with a shot from outside the box that deflected off the shoulder of a Tranquillity defender and bounced over the out-stretched hands of Berber.

The Cougars finished with nine shots on goal compared to six for the West Sierra League champions.

"It's the first time we've ever won (a section championship) and that's all we wanted,' Diaz said. "We got what we wanted."

Jose Rodriguez, who came off the bench to play keeper for McFarland immediately after the Tigers lone goal, had four saves.

The McFarland defenders playing directly in front of Rodriguez were stellar all night, particularly in the second half.

Down two goals and desperate to get back into the game, Tranquillity was limited to a trio of shots on goal in the second half, none of which tested Rodriguez much.

"We just had a few mistakes that we couldn't recover from," Luis Dominguez said. "The morale was a little bit down after...The kids gave it their heart. They came out. They played well and they tried. They did their best so I'm very proud of the team and the entire school and everybody that came out to support us."

While Dominguez was left to wonder what might have been, Gonzalez was having a celebratory bucket of ice water dumped on him.

The McFarland coach was so anxious about the game that he only slept two hours on Monday night.

"Last year we had the (loss) and the kids learned from that," Gonzalez said. "Everybody came back (this year) and since the beginning (of the season) they wanted it really bad, so bad. They practiced real hard and my hat's off to them."