By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
STAYTON, Ore.– Last season Daniel Curiel took over a Stayton Girls Soccer program that won seven total games the four years prior combined.
In 2025, in Curiel’s first season, the Eagles nearly matched that seven win total with five wins. Stayton went 5-7-2 on the year.
Coming from coaching under Stayton legendary coach Chris Shields, Curiel saw what it took to build a program. A winning one at that saw the Eagles win countless Oregon West Conference Titles, deep playoff wins and several 4A State Championship appearances. All things that Curiel has appreciated now entering Year 2 of running a program of his own after 12 years as Shields assistant.
“It was awesome. I learned from the best,” starts Curiel. “All those years with him, it was great. I got to learn as we went. Obviously we wanted some more hardware, but that’s how it is. We’re building (with the girls program), it’s going to be a process. The five wins (last season) was great, we wanted to have more. But hopefully this year we can get into the playoffs and make a little playoff push.”
On Wednesday, his Stayton squad played Silverton in a Summer League game, and facing a 5A playoff team like the Foxes will go a long way in preparing them for the remainder of Summer training and into Fall camp in August.
For Curiel, similar to Shields on the boys side, wants to play the best regardless of classification. Summer League or not, reps are reps against the best will serve beyond the end result on the scoreboard.
“Those are the type of team’s we want to play, especially right now to see the holes we want to fix,” said Curiel. “Last year when we played Silverton, they’re a powerhouse in 5A. We knew that these are the types of games that we want, we want to fix the things we need to fix so when we get into season, we’re able to polish them up by then.”
The Summer training season continues for the Eagles, who will kick off their season with a jamboree on August 27 at home before their first official game on September 3 against Dallas.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
