Herbert Lemus has coached local soccer teams, both girls and boys, for a while. He now coaches the Greyhound boys for the 10th straight year. The 60-year-old coach has seen good years and bad—the last winless season, 0-8, was just five years ago.
Last year, though, the Greyhounds made a subtle but meaningful move in the league standings for the North Bay Redwood. They had been stuck in fourth place in the five-team North Bay Redwood division, but in 2024-25 they were undefeated in league matches, climbing to second place behind the Piner Prospectors. The catch is that their record was 3-0-5; that’s five ties in eight games.
Their current record is 4-4-3 (one could say they tie a lot of games), but the league season has yet to begin. The cagey coach admits he frontloaded the schedule to give his team the experience they’d need.
“I put together a tough schedule for the boys by playing much bigger schools,” he said. “That’s where some of the losses have come from.”
One of those losses was just a week ago, on Jan. 6 against Ukiah. “Healdsburg had a quick start of the game against Ukiah,” Lemus recalled. “Junior forward Cayson Hagen scored in the sixth minute of play when he received a pass from senior Andres Madrigal to put Healdsburg ahead 1-0.”
At the end of the first half, in the 31st minute, Ukiah converted a penalty kick to make it 1-1, then managed to score again with just five minutes remaining in the game.
It was the fourth loss in a row for the Hounds, but thankfully they met Cloverdale two nights later. It took almost 30 minutes for Healdsburg to break through the Cloverdale defense for the first score of the evening, but it was not to be the last.
Junior forward Tyler Velasquez ended with two goals and an assist, and goals were also scored by sophomore Juan Martinez, Miguel Gonzales, Giovanni Vega and Andres Madrigal. Healdsburg goalkeepers Rafael Salas and Ian Welty combined to preserve a clean sheet and a 6-0 victory.
Healdsburg finished their pre-league schedule with a 1-0 win over St. Helena on Tuesday night.
As far as this year’s Greyhounds varsity, Lemus said, “The team has been playing well.” But there’s another reason behind Healdsburg’s modest 4-4-3 record so far this year. “The reason we play much bigger schools is because we need our Junior Varsity to play as many games as possible. Most schools our size do not field JV teams.” So playing smaller schools “doesn’t benefit our program” if the JV players can’t compete, the coach said.
“So, you take your chances with the much bigger opponents, but it benefits the program,” he concluded. “We are able to handle teams within our division based on school size.”
That proof will come later this week with the first two league match-ups, at Piner on Jan. 15 and hosting Elsie Allen on Jan. 20.
