Cuyamaca completes dream season with first-ever 3C2A Men's Soccer Championship

Tournament Central

SACRAMENTO – Two goals by Esteban Salais in the early minutes of each half provided the impetus for Cuyamaca College to find its first 3C2A Men's Soccer Championship on Sunday at American River College, as the Coyotes downed upstart Butte College, 2-0.

Cuyamaca, which began its long road in the postseason without a bye in the regional playoffs, rattled off six straight wins during the playoffs. The relatively young program made it to last year's state title game before falling to El Camino.

"It's a dream come true," said head coach Brian Hiatt Aleu. "When we started the program 12 years ago we wanted to put Cuyamaca on the map, becoming competitive, grinding, getting any games we could. Once we started becoming a little successful, then all of a sudden more people wanted to play us and then we start making playoffs, winning conference titles, start making noise and people start finding out who you are.

"And then every year gradually getting better," he added. "We've been knocking on the door for a few years now and this year we finally accomplished it."

The Coyotes took the upper hand in the game early in the 11^th minute when Ali Almaliki, who had Friday's heroics when he drilled a direct kick into the back of the net for an overtime score against Canada, gained back control of the ball along the endline. He then lofted a nice pass to Salais on the far side who headed it in for a 1-0 lead.

Cuyamaca carried that goal-lead into halftime and then in the 59^th minute struck again  when Salais took a long pass from beyond midfield to the right side where he drilled in a shot to the left side of the net and big 2-0 advantage.

The Coyotes staved off four shots by Butte down the stretch, picking up a save from Manuel Diaz and blocking two others. The Roadrunners had three consecutive corners in the final minutes to try and get a last-second score but were turned away each time.

The championship was the first for the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference and gave the SoCal region its fourth straight titlist.