WENDELL BOYS SOCCER

Head Coach

Felipe Paniagua, 3rd Season

Key Athletes

Kaysan Acevedo, 11, D

Cesar Camargo, 11, M

Cesar Muralles, 11, F

Martin Nava, 11, D

Roberto Orozco, 11, D

After narrowly missing out on state championships over the past several seasons, a special group of juniors finally delivered Wendell’s third boys soccer title in school history.

The Trojans went 20-2-1 on the season, and navigated several heart-stopping moments at the Class 4A State Tournament in Post Falls.  A back-and-forth opener with Weiser resulted in a 5-3 win.  Then came a pair of 1-0 nail-biters against McCall-Donnelly in the semifinals and Coeur d’Alene Charter in the championship.  The win over Coeur d’Alene Charter came on the Panthers’ home field.

Cesar Muralles scored five of Wendell’s seven goals throughout the state tournament run, and assisted on the other two.  He leads a strong group that is favored to repeat in 2025, as Julian Ponce was the only senior on this year’s squad.

HILLCREST FOOTBALL

Head Coach

Brennon Mossholder, 4th Season

Key Athletes

Jace Jeudy, 12, WR

Titan Larsen, 12, LB

Michael McCartney, 12, OT

Dax Sargent, 11, RB/LB

Tyson Sweetwood, 11, QB

Anyone who tells you that they thought Hillcrest would win the 2024 Class 5A football championship is either A) from Hillcrest or B) a liar.  Consider: a senior-heavy team nearly won the championship in 2023, suffering a heartbreaking loss to Bishop Kelly on a field goal that missed as time expired.

32 seniors departed via graduation, leaving a lot of holes to fill.  There was a nucleus of talented players returning (Rylan Borgmann, Jace Jeudy, Titan Larsen, Michael McCartney and Mason Saunders) but you can’t win a state football title with a top-heavy roster.  It takes all 22 starters to make it happen.

Through five weeks of action, the Knights were 4-4 and had been stung by district rival Skyline in a 28-16 loss.  But Hillcrest went 8-1 the rest of the way, including playoff wins over Sandpoint in the first round (35 to 0), Blackfoot in the quarterfinals (35 to 7), Lakeland in the semifinals (42 to 28) and Skyline in a revenge game for the championship (31 to 8).