Good things came in threes for Mexico boys soccer on Thursday.

In the season opener at home, the Bulldogs beat Eugene 10-0 on Chris Hotop Field in Eugene’s debut as a program. There were plenty of firsts for Mexico as well, including having three players score a hat trick for the first time in school history, winning via mercy rule for the first time since 2019 and scoring double digit goals for the first time since 2017.

Alex Rodriguez secured his hat trick after two goals in the 20th minute, Brixton Goerne netted his hat trick a minute later and Uriel Jarquin scored his third straight goal for a hat trick in the 37th minute.

Mexico vs Eugene Photo Gallery

“It shows we are willing to pass the ball around and not have one person take all the shots,” head coach Bill Gleeson said. “That’s a good thing to see.”

Mexico won its third straight home opener but did so more emphatically than it ever has in any victory of the past nine years. The Bulldogs mercy-ruled Fulton 8-0 in 2019 and beat the Hornets 10-0 in 2017. 

The team had two of its seniors lead the way when Rodriguez and Goerne scored hat tricks for a 6-0 lead in the 21st minute on a perfectly placed cross pass from senior Jesus Garcia to Goerne. Rodriguez and Goerne have never netted hat tricks for the Bulldogs but each said they have done so with club teams.

“I know every single player out here has been training,” Rodriguez said. “I’m just trying to train this team to be the best so we can win the district this year.”

Goerne said he is focused on the next game as well even though this game was so fun. After Mexico lost 5-1 to Winfield in the first round of districts despite winning eight games, he said the Bulldogs want to keep improving for tougher competition down the road.

“This is just the beginning of the season,” Goerne said. “As much as this is a good game, we need to keep our heads forward and just keep moving.”

Jarquin joked it would be nice to keep having games like Thursday but knows everybody on the team is capable of having scoring opportunities.

“It’s a great start to our season,” Jarquin said. “We’re all going to have our chance to make goals and have proud moments.”

Mexico rattled off 34 shots and only had senior goalkeeper Grant Walker stop two shots from Eugene. The Bulldogs were busy on offense early and eventually satisfied the bare minimum requirements for the mercy rule with an 8-0 lead in the 32nd minute.

The Bulldogs could have had even more goals after several of their early chances missed the net or caromed off the post or crossbar. There were two headers that followed cross-field passes that just veered off to the side. Gleeson said there were high-quality shots all games and liked the variety of ways Mexico scored.

“We’re trying to get them to shoot more because that was a focus of ours this year,” Gleeson said. “Take what the defense is giving you. The defense was giving us through balls and breakaways. They were also able to get those one-twos and get around and score that way.”

Gleeson said Mexico wanted to “crash the boards” to cash in on second-chance opportunities. The Bulldogs scored three rebound goals, including two by Rodriguez and one by Jarquin for his third goal.

“I just look all around so I can see the space that is open and then take that space,” Rodriguez said. “I scream at my teammates to pass it to me and then, if I see the opportunity to take a shot, I’ll take it.”

Goerne used his speed for his first two goals on breakaway chances. He said he made sure he was in the right spot like the Bulldogs try to always do.

“We’ve been working a lot recently on movement in practice,” Goerne said. “I just try to do that. To me, it’s not where I am. I like thinking more about where everybody is.”

Jarquin said scoring goals starts with communication and Mexico had plenty of that in its first game.

“For me, it’s all about communication,” Jarquin said. “Look for your teammates and look for the open spaces so they can pass you the ball or you can pass them the ball.”

Mexico had another home game Tuesday against Elsberry with Silex before its final North Central Missouri Conference home opener at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in Fulton in the final year of the conference. The Bulldogs are familiar with all of their conference opponents, but Gleeson said he is glad they had a good showing against a team nobody has seen before.

“It was tough because you don’t have any information,” Gleeson said. “Usually you can look to see how they’ve done and things like that. I knew from also coaching basketball that Eugene has done really well in basketball for several years. I knew they had athletes so we were just going to go on the assumption that they were going to play really hard and give us everything they had.”