Orange Belt Boys Soccer Player of the Year: Daniel Ruiz
GHHS forward was state’s 11th leading scorer
ndosu@portervillerecorder. com
Ask Daniel Ruiz about any goal he scored this season and you’re likely to just get a scrunched up face as he tries to remember the particular moment.
The Granite Hills High School sophomore scored a lot of goals — 36 to be exact — so it’s no surprise he has a hard time remembering each one. But what he does remember are all the wins and leading the Grizzlies boys soccer program to their most successful season ever.
With Ruiz at forward, Granite (19-5-2, 7-3-2 ESL) upset both Porterville and Lindsay, took second in the East Sequoia League and were the CIF Central Section Division VI runner-ups.
And those 36 goals? They all happened in 17 games and made
Ruiz the state’s 11th, and the section’s third, leading scorer.
Proving himself as the future to continued success for the Grizzlies, Ruiz was also the program’s first-ever ALLESL Most Valuable Player and The Recorder’s 2019-20 Orange Belt Boys Soccer Player of the Year.
Ruiz was on the Grizzlies’ radar last season but instead went to Mexico to play for the U-15 team of Club de Fútbol Pachuca U-15 team, a professional soccer team in Liga MX. Homesick, he came back home this year and quickly became a starter for Granite.
“He has a little bit of everything but his ball control is real good,” GHHS head coach Pedro Gonzalez said. “In little space he can take two, three players. And he has a real good left.”
Ruiz’s skills showed immediately with the striker scoring in every one of the Grizzlies’ first seven games and recording back-to-back hat tricks (three goals) in the first two against Kennedy (2-131) and Summit Charter (2-7), respectively.
But it was the team’s fifth game against Div. III Porterville (14-10) that was Ruiz’s favorite and a game changer for Granite. The Grizzlies beat the Panthers’ 5-4 in overtime for their first-ever win against Porterville and Ruiz scored twice.
“It was a really good game, it could’ve been anyone’s game and we just really…the game was just crazy,” Ruiz said.
The game was critical in the Grizzlies not only becoming the No. 1 team in Div. VI, but also a team to beat heading into league play, especially after their performance in the Annual Lindsay Cup later that week.
In the tournament, Granite once again beat Porterville then held eventual Div. I Valley champion, Central (20-5-3), to just one goal in a 1-0 loss. Being an underclassmen and new to the program, Ruiz said originally he had no idea how big these games were. “At first, not really, until people started telling me how good the teams were,” Ruiz said. “That’s when I found out how important the games were going to be.” Along with beating Porterville, Granite also defeated former eight-time, reigning ESL champion Lindsay (13-8-3, 7-41 ESL) in ESL play. Ruiz was crucial in the two team’s first meeting, a 4-4 draw that saw Ruiz score his fourth hat trick of the season against the Div. IV Cardinals. In the second meeting, Granite defeated Lindsay 2-1 for
the first time in seven years. Ruiz didn’t score that game but it didn’t matter because the team won.
“That’s all I really care about, just winning,” he said. “I don’t really care if I score. I mean it’s important but winning is just what I have in mind and that’s it.”
In his first taste of playoffs, Ruiz helped the top-seeded Grizzlies to an 11-0 quarterfinal win over eighth-seeded Bakersfield Christian (214-1) then another victory over fifth-seed Kennedy in the semifinals. He scored two goals apiece in both games but knew the Valley championship game would be much more difficult.
“I was feeling excited,” Ruiz said. “I was happy, I was really happy but I knew the final wasn’t going to be like that. We weren’t going to win by three goals, four goals, five goals. It was just going to be a close game.”
As expected, things were tougher in the Valley championship game against third-seeded Dos Palos (12-13), especially when Ruiz had to come out with a foot injury with the Grizzlies trailing 1-0.
“I was hoping for us to come back as soon as possible but I just seen we weren’t really getting close to the goal so that’s when I was like, ‘I want to go in. I really want to go in,’” he said.
However time on the bench paid off for Ruiz and he scored in the 22nd minute of the game, just seven minutes after coming off the bench.
“In that particular time it was better for the team and for him,” coach Gonzalez said. “Because sometimes when you’re inside the field, you don’t see everything from outside. And I think when they come out because they have injury, and watch a little bit from outside the game, they click and start thinking, “What do we need?’ I think that’s why he scored.”
Ruiz’s goal was the equalizer and it gave the Grizzlies hope. But that was short-lived as Dos Palos proceeded to score two goals in less than three minutes and secure a 3-1 win.
“I felt like we still had a chance,” Ruiz said. “But then like, two minutes later they scored their third one and that’s when I was just like damn.”
The loss was one of the rare moments where Ruiz let his emotion show and he dropped to his knees when the final whistle blew.
But with two more years to play, Ruiz has nothing to hang his head about. With him returning next season as the reigning ALL-ESL MVP alongside four other ALLESL first and second team selections, including the section’s fifth leading scorer in forward Salud Magana, the Grizzlies are looking at a real shot of another Valley final appearance.
And if Ruiz continues to develop his right foot, Gonzalez believes he’ll be even more unstoppable.
“He has a right too but he doesn’t want to use it,” coach Gonazlez said. “If he started using it, I think he’d be a real complete player. And that’s what I try to tell him and teach him in practice, he’s got to use his right. He’s going to be more dangerous.”
Ruiz has big goals for next season and he’ll do his best to heed his coach’s advice and get himself, and his team, ready for an even bigger season next year.
“My goal for next season is to win Valley and hopefully state,” Ruiz said. “And just work hard, because to win that, not just me but like our team, we all have to work hard during summer.”