SPORTS 32 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY JULY 2-8, 2026 www.montereycountynow.com Forward Jessica Halladay and the Monterey Bay Sirens knocked off Pleasanton 3-2 at Cardinale Stadium on Saturday, June 27 to close out the club’s inaugural season in the USL W League. But it wasn’t just Halladay’s hat trick that had home fans stomping and chanting. The win clinched the Nor Cal Division championship, capping a remarkable 8-1-1 campaign and sending the Sirens into the playoffs. “The atmosphere, the fans, the girls, the coaches—everything about it has been a blast,” Halladay says. “The only complaint I have is that we don’t have more games here at home to play in front of the fans.” The Sirens will travel to Seattle for the Western Conference playoffs. They face Capo FC from San Juan Capistrano on Friday, July 3 at 2pm at Interbay Stadium. If they win, the Sirens will face either Salmon Bay FC or Colorado Storm on Sunday, July 5. “We all committed to one goal, and that was to win this league,” says forward and Salinas native Cadence “CJ” Walters, adding that the squad accomplished it in their first season. The Sirens showed from the start they were a force to be reckoned with. Facing Stockton—an experienced club undefeated the previous year—in the season opener, Monterey Bay battled to a 1-1 draw. They then went on a tear through the Nor Cal Division, winning six in a row, four by shutout. A surprising 4-1 defeat at Davis against the California Storm proved to be the only setback—surprising because Monterey Bay conceded only 10 goals all season. But they bounced back, keeping a clean sheet against Oakland before Halladay’s three-goal night finished off the campaign. “It’s been a very player-led team,” Head Coach Laura VanWart says. “They’ve set a high bar for themselves, and they should be really proud.” Halladay’s hat trick in the season finale gave her four goals in the season, sharing the team scoring title with Luz Arreaga. For her part, Arreaga proved deadly accurate, putting 90 percent of her shots on target. Eight other Sirens scored at least one goal this season. Halladay led the team with three assists. Goalkeeper Alexa Malaspina collected 25 saves. VanWart notes that fan support has been strong from the start. After the June 27 match, many of the young children in the stands sought autographs from Sirens players. The USL W is a pre-professional development league with 90 teams across the country. The playoffs consist of 16 divisional winners facing off in conference brackets, hosted in Burlington, Vermont; Asheville, North Carolina; Pittsburgh; and Seattle. “I can’t wait for the next step at playoffs and see how far we can get,” Halladay says. Playoff matches are streamed live on SportsEngine Play. Play to Win The Monterey Bay Sirens complete their first season with a divisional championship. By Celia Jiménez Monterey Bay Sirens downed Pleasanton 3-2 to wrap up the team’s inaugural season in the USL W and the division title. Postseason play begins on Friday, July 3 in Seattle. CELIA JIMÉNEZ The knockout game in the Round of 32 made World Cup history on Sunday, June 28, as Canada and South Africa squared off, representing the first of 16 matches in the expanded 48-game field. In the crowd at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles was a Seaside family rooting for neither team in particular, wearing Monterey Bay F.C. and Monterey Bay Sirens jerseys, the day after the local women’s team won the championship (see above). The tickets to this historic game were a Christmas gift from Andrea Barajas to her husband, Eric Barajas. “Eric is a lifelong football fan and he had never been to a World Cup game,” Andrea says. They also went to see Paraguay play Australia at Levi’s Stadium on June 25, which ended nil-nil. (Andrea rooted for Australia, where she once studied abroad, and Eric for Paraguay, with a preference for Latin American teams. Their 7-month-old son, Nico, has not yet shared his allegiances.) Despite no goals, simply walking into the stadium was moving. “I got really emotional just entering my first-ever World Cup match,” Eric says. “It was a really meaningful moment to be a soccer supporter in that very moment.” Two matches in, they had to wait until stoppage time in the knockout round to see a goal scored, but they were positioned perfectly in a standing-room area to watch Canada sink its 1-0 victory. “At that point, everyone just went crazy,” Eric says. The lifelong soccer fan, 41, has transitioned from player/supporter to just the latter after a series of injuries. He volunteers for the CSU Monterey Bay soccer program and you can hear his enthusiastic voice through the loudspeakers as the PA announcer for MBFC matches at Cardinale Stadium. (He now studies announcers, and was irritated by the Anglicized pronunciation of Paraguay. “Now I pay so much more attention to the tone, the annunciation, how loud the announcers are,” says the bilingual announcer. “I could not stop criticizing him because he kept saying Parag-way.”) With a MexicoEcuador knockout game scheduled for June 30, after the Weekly’s deadline, Eric is unsure who to cheer on—his mother is Ecuadorian, his father Mexican. Going forward, the Barajases are watching to see if Cape Verde can take down Argentina, or DR Congo can take down England. “I like the underdog story,” Andrea says. “I would like to see someone who’s not necessarily favored win it.” Either way, they’ve been able to achieve a milestone as fans, and hope to raise their son into a lifelong passion. As Eric says, “football is life.” And, Goal! Local soccer fans make the most of the North American World Cup matches. By Sara Rubin The Barajas family (from left, Andrea, 7-month-old Nico, and Eric) at their first-ever World Cup game on June 25 at Levi’s Stadium, when Paraguay and Australia tied 0-0. “I’m always going to root for my Latin American brothers and sisters,” Eric says—with the exception of Argentina, hoping for an underdog victory.
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