{"id":47852,"date":"2015-05-08T14:00:20","date_gmt":"2015-05-08T21:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=47852"},"modified":"2015-05-07T22:15:35","modified_gmt":"2015-05-08T05:15:35","slug":"lopez-leaves-el-rancho-for-pacifica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=47852","title":{"rendered":"Lopez Leaves El Rancho for Pacifica"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Vinnie<\/a>

Vinnie Lopez, shown here being interviewed by Tim Peterson, is leaving El Rancho for Pacifica<\/p><\/div>\n

By Tim Peterson<\/p>\n

(Pico Rivera) – Vinnie Lopez\u00a0is\u00a0stepping down as the head coach at El Rancho to take the same position at Pacifica he confirmed late Thursday.<\/p>\n

“I think it was the hardest decision of my life.\u00a0I love El Rancho for giving me the opportunity to be a\u00a0head coach and I love those kids in the locker room,” Lopez said. “But this was an opportunity\u00a0that I could not pass up.”<\/p>\n

Lopez took over\u00a0for Rick Zepeda after the 2011 seasons and went 5-5 in 2012.\u00a0He followed that up with\u00a0a 6-5\u00a0 season in\u00a02013 and then had his best year\u00a0in 2014. He led to the Dons\u00a0to a Del Rio League title last year and finished 8-3 overall.\u00a0Despite a first round playoff loss to Burbank\u00a0Lopez had brought an excitement to\u00a0the Ranch that hadn’t been felt in years. Lopez leaves ER with an overall record of 19-13.<\/p>\n

Pacifica went 2-8 last year.<\/p>\n

“That’s the thing about all of this. It was really hard to leave a championship team\u00a0like El Rancho for a team that struggled last year,”\u00a0Lopez\u00a0said. “But I can see a lot of talent at Pacifica and I think we can turn it around.”<\/p>\n

Lopez was happy with the direction that the program had taken.\u00a0The Dons knocked off perennial Del Rio\u00a0powerhouse\u00a0La Serna\u00a0on the way to the league title.<\/p>\n

“I really think it was just us and\u00a0La Serna in the Del Rio the last couple of years. I don’t think it would have mattered\u00a0who else was in that league\u00a0we were the two teams to beat,”\u00a0said Lopez.<\/p>\n

Lopez feels that the future is bright for the Dons\u00a0but is now looking forward to\u00a0his new gig at Pacifica. He will be teaching as well as coaching at the school.<\/p>\n

“I’m an OC guy so this is like going home for me.\u00a0There\u00a0were several offers that came my way but this was\u00a0just the right one\u00a0for me and for my family. I’ve got three kids under 10 and this just made sense for me,” Lopez added. “I loved my time at El Rancho but\u00a0this\u00a0a good move for me.”<\/p>\n

Lopez told his team and the staff Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tim Peterson (Pico Rivera) – Vinnie Lopez\u00a0is\u00a0stepping down as the head coach at El Rancho to take the same position at Pacifica he confirmed late Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[7621,11239,7641,7786,11240,2662,9439],"class_list":["post-47852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-soccer","tag-burbank-football","tag-del-rio-leaue","tag-el-rancho-football","tag-la-serna-football","tag-paifica-football","tag-rick-zepeda","tag-vinnie-lopez"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47852"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47853,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47852\/revisions\/47853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}