Semi-pro soccer: C.F. San Rafael wins league, earns UPSL promotion

Players for the Club De Futbol San Rafael semi-pro soccer team took the field on Saturday at Novato High with their eyes on the ultimate prize – a chance to win a league title and gain automatic promotion into the United Premier Soccer League premier division.

Early goals by Christopher DeLeon (former Novato High standout) and Rio Suendermann (former Archie Williams – then Drake) set the tone as C.F. San Rafael (8-0-2) rolled to a 5-0 victory against Junction 29 of Vallejo to cap an undefeated season and move up a league.

“We had a good season,” said former Novato High standout Dennis Hernandez, the MCAL’s player of the year in 2019. “We went undefeated so that’s a good accomplishment for us. We just keep working. We want to get better every day.”

The club, which is still in its first year of existence, will move up from the UPSL’s Division 1 into the Premier Division this fall. The team came close to earning a promotion last fall but finished second in the league and lost in the playoff semifinals.

“We knew from the get go this season’s goal was to get first place,” said midfielder Allan Estrada, a former Terra Linda standout who now coaches at Novato High. “It feels great, a lot of joy. The boys worked really hard for us, so we’re just happy that we got the result today and we won the league.”

C.F. San Rafael jumped ahead 2-0 inside the first 15 minutes on Saturday with Estrada providing assists on both goals by DeLeon and Suendermann.

Another former Novato High player, Santiago Perez, pushed the lead to 3-0, launching a rocket of a shot from well outside the 18-yard box after a pass back from DeLeon.

The lead grew to 4-0 just before the half when Suendermann played a long ball toward Adrian Pleitez, who took the ball right out of the air and shot it across his body and inside the far post.  Estrada capped the scoring early in the second half following an assist from Hernandez.

C.F. San Rafael needed to win its final game of the campaign to ensure it held off second-place club Azteca FC.

“We played Selma [Football Club] midway through the season, which beat us in the semifinals last season,” Estrada said. “The league was a little close up right there. We were undefeated but they were right behind us. That game really shifted the league. We beat them 6-1. We showed up, we got the result. After that we played against Azteca who was in second place. We tied them so we knew we had to win these last two games to secure the league.”

The club was started last fall with the idea of giving local players a chance to play at the semi-pro level.

“There’s really no competitive club here other than [Marin FC] Legends, which just started like a year and a half ago,” Estrada said. “We really had the vision of creating a pathway for Marin players. When I was 20, 21 (years old), I had to drive up to Napa, I had to drive up to Sonoma to play competitive soccer so we really wanted to bring something here in Marin.

“There’s a huge soccer community here so we just want to bring the community together and just create this team that the community can treat as their professional soccer team ,their local club.”

The club’s roster is dotted with local players, including both coaches in Maxens Garcia (TL) and Payam Ravanfar (San Marin).

“I was at tryouts in the fall and we only had 20-25 guys show up for tryouts,” Ravanfar said. “This spring for tryouts, we had over 70 players so we had a bigger pool of players to choose from. I think the word started to get around fairly quickly to guys that ‘Hey, there’s UPSL soccer here in Marin county’.”

Other players on the roster with Marin roots include Leonel De Leon (TL), Jeffrey Grijalva (San Rafael), Angel Hidalgo (San Rafael), Jordy Diaz (Novato), Gabriel Estrada (Novato), Ricky Mendez (San Rafael), Jordy Diaz (Novato), and Jonathan Villeda (Novato).

“There’s good soccer players here in Marin county,” said Ravanfar, who is joining the University of Hawaii-Hilo staff as an assistant coach in the fall. “What happens a lot of times is they just play in these Sunday leagues and if you go and you really watch a Sunday league game in Marin county, there are some exceptional players out there.

“For them, having the semi-professional team to go to, it’s really important and I think that’s helping the game grow in Marin county. Now we have Angel Hidalgo and Jordy Diaz and we had three high school kids that stayed with us through their senior year so that’s showing these MCAL guys there’s a pathway to getting into semi-pro soccer.”