Even the scorching Houston heat could not keep Viva Coogs down in the second annual Hispanic Alumni Champions League.

They took home the first-place trophy alongside bragging rights for the rest of the year after defeating CMAS-AAP in the friendly soccer tournament hosted by UH Hispanic Alumni Association at Main Street Soccer on Saturday.

“This year we brought back a lot of the players who played last year and we brought back some of the same sponsors and some new sponsors,” President Ellie Gamez said.

During the final match Viva Coogs faced off CMAS-AAP, who proved to be a competitive team, and carried the game to penalty shots.

“We’ve actually been a team since we all played together in high school and we also play the co-ed leagues at the University of Houston,” CMAS-AAP’s captain Eric Moreno said.

Eight teams faced off in the friendly competition with 10 players on each team who all helped to give back to the community by raising scholarship funds.

“This is for a fundraiser and I thought, ‘This is pretty cool,’ that we get to play soccer and help with the scholarship money,” Viva Coogs’ player Alexis Nieves said.

UH alumni are looking to match last year’s donations and hope that the tournament continues to grow and provide scholarships for students.

“Last year we sold out pretty quickly as we did this year and we would like to expand the amount of teams we can register into a bigger venue and maybe carry this over to more than one day,” Gamez said.

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