Soccer boys earn All-District honors

Pictured, left to right, are Cameron Cooper, Ace Estrella, Julio Aleman, Payne Stinchfield and Mitchell Muller.

Whitehouse soccer player Payne Stinchfield has earned Sophomore of the Year honors for District 12-4A.

Joining him on the first team is Julio Aleman, while Cameron Cooper received second team honors and Ace Estrella and Mitchell Muller were named honorable mention.

Stinchfield scored 10 goals for the Wildcats and had four assists. Aleman had eight goals and five assists.

The varsity boys had a disappointing season, finishing 7- 15-4 overall.

"We had a tough season," said head coach Chris Clemons. "We lost 11 seniors off of last year's team so depth was going to be a concern going into this season. Injuries hit us hard this year. We lost three kids for the season with ACL injuries and several others for various reasons."

"We have very high standards," added Clemons. "We expect to compete for the district championship and make the playoffs every season. So in that regard, it was a disappointing season. But, I am very proud of how the kids continued to compete and play very hard the entire season."

Clemons gave a special word of praise to his six seniors, Muller, Cooper, Estrella, Daniel Peek, Travis Lowthorp and Umer Shaukat. They gave us a great effort and will be dearly missed."

If there was a bright side to this year's season, other than the fighting spirit of his players, Clemons said it's the unexpected experience his younger players gained.

"The future is bright for us. We have a lot of underclassmen returning that got significant varsity playing time this year," he said. "We also will get back a couple of kids that were lost for the season due to injury that will help out a ton. There is no reason why we shouldn't be competing for a district championship next year."