The562’s high school soccer coverage for the 2025-26 season is sponsored by Long Beach Poly soccer alum Kennedy Justin.
The562’s coverage of Millikan Athletics for the 2025-26 school year is sponsored by Brian Ramsey and TLD Law.
The562’s coverage of Long Beach Wilson Athletics is sponsored by Joel Bitonio, Class of 2009.
It appears 2026 has brought nothing new for Moore League boys’ soccer. Every game is an intense battle, and the result is rarely decided before the final whistle.
In the first game back from Winter Break, the Wilson Bruins fought for a home draw against the defending league champs from Millikan, scoring a game-tying PK with just 10 minutes left to play.
The 1-1 draw came at the end of a physical clash with 25 combined fouls and five total yellow cards issued, and the host Bruins were certainly more pleased with the final result.
“I felt like we didn’t play scared, and that was the biggest part about our result today,” said Wilson head coach CJ Brewer. “We really went at them, and we didn’t just sit back and park the bus. We went back and forth, there were good opportunities both ways. I’m excited for our boys to rise to the occasion and play a good team. I think that our hard schedule really prepared us to play a team that’s a little bit better than us, because we’ve been playing teams that have been better than us the whole time.”
The visitors from Millikan created a majority of the chances, with most of them falling to senior Jaycob Alfaro-Plascencia in the first half. His first look was off a throw-in deep in Wilson territory, setting him up for a header that snuck just over the crossbar.
A few minutes later, the ball fell to him in a pocket of space in the center of the field. He took a pair of touches to line up his strike, and fired in a thunderbolt off the crossbar from over 30 yards out, well outside the stretched arm of Wilson goalie Angel Ramirez.
“It was a great goal,” said Millikan head coach Jeff Schofield. “It’s funny, I’ve been on him about taking more shots. He sometimes wants to dribble and search for the perfect moment, and sometimes it’s like, ‘Just let it rip’, and especially in an environment like this, where it’s slick and all that stuff, put something on goal, you never know what’s gonna happen. But that one wasn’t getting saved.”
That left the Rams with a 1-0 lead at halftime, and they were hunting for more in the second half. NIne Wilson fouls over the final 40 minutes handed Millikan a number of promising free kick opportunities, but they never found their second goal.
Then with just over 10 minutes left to play, Wilson was able to get right back in the game. Sophomore forward Lio Rodriguez was tracking a ball toward the edge of the penalty area when he went down under a challenge from a Rams defender. The referee blew his whistle and pointed to the penalty spot, giving Wilson a chance to tie the match against the run of play.
Senior Diego Garrido stepped up and buried his PK to the left side of the goal, giving the Bruins an equalizer on just their fourth shot attempt of the night, and the only one on goal.
“We wanted to win. It was our first game in the league and I think that we created enough chances to win,” said Schofield of the outcome. “And, I mean, there’s not a lot of people who would think that’s a penalty kick. I’ll say it that way.”
While Schofield politely disagreed with the decision, he also emphasized to his players that they can’t put themselves in position to have a call change the game, and must be more careful using their hands defensively.
On the other sideline, it was an encouraging result for a Wilson side that was playing without three of its starters. Brewer said he’s encouraged about his team’s performance and think they’ll be a better team when these teams play again.
“I felt like they just stayed composed, because they’ve been challenged so much in the off-season that this game was actually easier than all the other games that we played,” said Brewer of his team’s performance. “I think that the hard part is to keep them motivated through all those tough games, and we were able to rise to this, and now we can ride this momentum through the rest of league.”
Both teams will return to action on Wednesday with Millikan (9-3-1, 0-0-1) visiting Long Beach Poly and Wilson (3-5-5, 1-0-1) traveling to face Compton.
