SOUTH EL MONTE — The Arroyo boys soccer team was determined not to let South El Monte’s dominant junior striker Fabricio Ocampo beat them like he did the first time, shadowing him with two, sometimes three defenders at a time, and being as physical as the referee would allow.

Ocampo scored all five goals in a 5-0 win over Arroyo the first time they met, and Ocampo leads the CIF Southern Section in goals scored with 43, which is also second best in the state.

With so much attention on Ocampo, other Eagles players stepped up on Monday with senior Edwin Ruiz scoring in the 35th minute and Juan Santillan doubling their lead in the 75th minute on their way to a 2-0 victory.

“Our big man up top (Ocampo) is a monster, he’s been there for us all year,” South El Monte coach Eduardo Rodriguez said. “But today he needed his teammates to get something done and they did.”

The victory gives South El Monte (18-4-3, 10-2) its first Mission Valley League title since 2016, and while all the talk this season has surrounded Ocampo, Rodriguez said it was the determination from his two seniors who pulled it out.

“It’s crazy because the two guys that scored (Ruiz and Santillan) have been out for us all year,” Rodriguez said. “This is senior night, they’re both seniors, and they got to comeback and get the win.

“Santillan got hurt in the first round (of MVL play) against Mountain View (Dec. 19), and hasn’t played until today. And Edwin has had his troubles all season and hasn’t been able to full recovery from a slightly torn quad, and he gave it his all.”

Ruiz made a nice run from the top of the box toward the left corner, heading home a corner kick from Alex Morales at the near post from close range for a 1-0 lead, and it stayed that way until half.

“He gave it his all on that,” Rodriguez said of Ruiz. “You saw it on that header, he had all the passion in the world, he wanted it so bad.”

The Eagles had the most chances throughout, limiting the Knights to mostly counter attacks. Finally, the Eagles were able to double their lead on Santillan’s left footed shot that ricocheted off the left post and through with ten minutes left.

“Everybody see’s the stat line of Fabricio, and he’s a great player, one of the top goal scorers in the whole state, but as a team we all worked together,” Santillan said.

South El Monte lost two of its first three MVL games, but finished on an 11-game win streak.

“We thought league was done and look at us now, we’re league champs,” Santillan said with a wide grin.

Ocampo couldn’t of been prouder watching his teammates step up.

“My teammates haven’t had the best season because they’ve been working with injuries, but they worked past it and made sure they did everything in this game and got the result,” Ocampo said.

Arroyo finishes 13-4-2 and 8-2-2 heading into next week’s CIF Southern Section playoffs.

The Knights only had one good chance, and it came in the first minute on a shot that Jorge Lopez probably wanted back.

Lopez walked into a cross unmarked in front of the goal and sent a five-yard shot straigtht over the crossbar.

The rest of the way, South El Monte limited the Knight’s chances to a few shots and set pieces that were never goal dangerous.

Rodriguez said his team is ready for the playoffs. For the first time the CIF-SS is placing teams in playoff divisions based on a computer ranking, just like it does for football.

“I think they’re going to have us in Division 2, which will be a little tough because we were in Division 6 last year and didn’t make the playoffs,” Rodriguez said. “If things stayed the same as last year we probably would have been the top-ranked team in Division 6, but we feel like we can play with anybody.”