TUNNEL HILL, Ga. — It’s a position that perhaps doesn’t get enough credit for the wins and too much blame for the losses, but soccer teams have difficulty reaching the state championship game without a top-flight goalkeeper keeping the opposing team off the scoreboard.

Vicente Vaca anchors a Northwest Whitfield High School defense that’s posted eight shutouts en route to getting the Bruins into Saturday’s Class 4A state championship game, set for 7:30 p.m. at Mercer University’s Five Star Stadium against Gainesville’s Chestatee High School.

During a stretch toward the middle of the year the Bruins went a full month — 31 days — without allowing a goal over its five games.

Goalie is perhaps the most pressure-packed spot on the field, but one where Vaca has thrived.

“It’s such a tough spot. When you make a mistake, especially in soccer, you’re giving the other team exactly what they’re working for,” Northwest coach Ryan Scoggins said. “The goalie has so much pressure. People don’t see the midfielder that maybe didn’t pressure his man and allowed the pass to be made and the striker to score. They just see the ball going into the net and the goalie let that happen. Vicente has the mindset he can handle it when something goes well he doesn’t seem to ever get too up and when it goes wrong he can just forget. As a goalie you’ve got to really have a short memory. Any time a team has been able to score on us, he’s been ‘OK, let’s regroup and let’s play.'”

The senior feels it takes more than size or athleticism to be successful manning the net.

“To be a good goalie, you have to be a voice,” Vaca said. “You have to make your presence felt when you play goalie. When there’s a big guy on a corner and you get up and you get the ball. It’s a presence. You lead these guys to tell them ‘Watch out for this run, watch out for that run.’ I think you have to have a voice and be a strong person to be a goalie. I think I have some of that right now.”

Vaca was Northwest’s starting goalie his freshman year but didn’t play as a sophomore. When he rejoined the team as a junior he played in the field and backed up Manuel Zapata. Now, as a senior, Vaca is back in the net and has led his team within one victory of a state championship.

He began working at the position in middle school where he said both he and his coaches felt that would be the best spot for him.

“I worked there a little, in middle school my coach came up to me and said ‘Hey, I hear you’re pretty good at goalie. We need somebody,'” Vaca said. “People said, ‘Hey, he’s pretty good give him a look.’ We both went with it. I guess I just fit into it. I kept working hard and put myself into a position like this, a position I can lead other guys. It’s pretty cool.”

At only 5-foot-6, Vaca doesn’t have the prototypical height many goalies have. He makes up for it with other valuable attributes.

“I started playing it in middle school, as the years went I think I just fit into it,” he said. “I’m not the tallest guy, but … you just have to have heart and just believe you can play it. You have to have that mindset you’re going to play hard every game. You’ve got to be smart. For me, me playing goalie being short, I have to do the job nobody really wanted to do, but for me to step into a role like that, it’s pretty amazing.”

Scoggins said he feels Vaca has the intangibles needed to run the team from the goal.

“He just has really good instincts. He’s got a good understanding of where to be in space, when the ball’s moving where to position himself,” Scoggins said. “A lot of goalkeeping is positioning. He’s certainly a good athlete. He may not be the biggest or fastest kid, but he is a good athlete. He knows how to move. He has the trust of our defense and that’s important as well. He will communicate with them and make sure they’re in the right spots, and by them being in the right spots, a lot of times he doesn’t even have to save. He understands that role as well, to be in constant communication with the defenders and make sure they know what to do.”

The Northwest defenders certainly appreciate the value Vaca has and how far he’s led the team.

“Our defense has been amazing lately,” defender Carlos Martinez said. “We’ve all been working together and without Vicente in the back there, leading all of us together I don’t know where we’d be.”

It’s safe to say that Northwest wouldn’t be playing for a championship without him, especially the way their second round playoff game against North Oconee played out.

The Bruins trailed by a goal with only six seconds left on the clock when they set up for a free kick 55 yards from the goal. Vaca came out of the goal to take it and sent a blast that made it into the goal, tying the game. Despite that back-against-the-wall scenario, Vaca said the eventual penalty kick shootout carried more pressure with it.

“To see that your season’s on the line, it’s do or die. I think that’s more pressure than taking a free kick,” he said. “A shootout, you got to be prepared for it, you got to be focused. Your season’s on the line. It’s either you want it or you don’t want it.”

Fortunately for Northwest, Vaca rose to the occasion. He wanted it and he got it. The next thing he wants: a state championship.