Prep boys’ soccer: Whitney wins first section championship behind Goularte’s hat trick
Brayden Goularte is referred to by his coach as the mystery man.
The Whitney High School boys’ soccer senior was the Sierra Foothill League leader in goals this season with 19. Thursday night’s Sac-Joaquin Section Division l championship against Modesto left no doubt — he’s someone teams just can’t seem to figure out.
Goularte has played soccer for 14 years and his performance at Heart Health Park might go down as his finest moment. He scored three goals in No. 2 seed Whitney’s 5-0 win. It is the Wildcats’ first boys’ soccer section championship. Daniel Yoon and Drew Krawiec also scored.
“I’ve been envisioning (playing in a section final) for a long time and scoring in it,” Goularte said. “When I scored the first goal, I knew I would get more. It’s something I’ve always thought about and it’s a great feeling to do it. … I thought to myself that I had to curl (the ball) around. It’s exactly what I thought would happen.”
Despite being a captain and a four-year varsity player, Goularte has no scholarship offers. His performance this season might change that.
“There’s a reason why he led the SFL in scoring this year,” Whitney coach Joel Williams said. “You have a kid that is one of the hearts and souls of our program. He scores goals left and right. It’s one of those things that you look (and think) this guy has had a great high school career. We are waiting for (a college) to take a look at this guy because he’s special. He can do some great things and someone needs to give him that opportunity.”
Another player that has helped anchor the Whitney program is goalie Andrew Vanden Akker. With him in goal, Whitney has recorded five consecutive shutouts. Vanden Akker started playing with some of his Whitney teammates when he was 5 years old. The first team they played on was the Rocklin Rumble — a recreation team in the Rocklin youth soccer program.
“We have all played with each other on countless club and rec teams,” He said. “We started when we were 5 years old. It really helps. … COVID brought us together. We knew we had the potential to get here, but to finally do it is awesome. It’s something we will never forget.”
Vanden Akker added, “We have been looking forward to this moment. This is huge for Whitney because we have been close in the past so many times. We finally made it. … I can’t express how happy I am right now. It’s way (better) than I thought it would be.”
And then there’s the coach. Williams started with the Whitney program in 2013 and has seen his program grow. The Wildcats lost in heartbreaking fashion in the semifinals in 2019 and in the second round in 2020 before winning it all.
It’s why Williams didn’t mind when his team gave him a Gatorade bath despite the temperature being below 40 degrees. His team endured colder weather as they watched the Whitney girls’ soccer team beat Granite Bay in the D-ll section championship Tuesday.
Most of the girls’ players were in attendance to watch the championship Thursday.
“Over the last several years, it’s been fun watching this program grow,” Williams said. “To see them achieve the goal (of winning a section championship) that they worked so hard for is memorable. … Whitney is a special and unique place. It’s the thing we preach to the entire school — it’s not a girls’ or boys’ program. We do some of our team-building and fundraising as a program together.”
Whitney (18-2-2) will await its seeding for the NorCal championships that start next Tuesday. The Wildcats are expected to draw one of the top seeds in the D-l bracket.
“We are definitely not done yet,” Goularte said. “We have three more games and I think we can win all three.”