Jimenez reflects on Marble Falls boys soccer historical season
CAPTION: After guiding the Marble Falls Middle School boys soccer team to another win, the players rewarded coach Aaron Jimenez with an ice bath. Courtesy photos
As the Marble Falls High School boys soccer program won three of the last four district championships and its 2026 team made school history by reaching the state semifinals, one individual wasn’t surprised by the finish.
After all, Aaron Jimenez had the best view of those players when they played for him at Marble Falls Middle School. Four years earlier many of those players went 8-0 under his guidance.
Two years later, Jimenez has returned to Burnet County. Except he is the new Burnet High School boys soccer head coach. And while he is excited to be apart of the Burnet Consolidated Independent School District staff and has been getting to know his Bulldogs for the last couple of weeks, the former Marble Falls coach expressed a sense of pride in watching his former pupils realize so many of their team goals last season.
“I’m not surprised at all,” he said. “From the moment I met them at the middle school level and got to start working with them and prepare them for high school, and I haven’t told (former head coach Rick) Hoover this when he would come visit or come watch our games, the potential was always there.”
Still, he added, while the Mustangs are naturally talented players, that’s not enough to have that type of success. Jimenez also praised Hoover and Ryan Craven, who succeeded Hoover as the Mustangs head coach the last couple of years. Craven resigned at the end of the season to take a job in Liberty Hill to be closer to his family.
“It’s pretty easy to see that coach Hoover had done such a good job at the high school, developing and changing the program,” Jimenez said. “And so when you bring these middle school kids who had such a rich history in the game and they got to work with me for two years and then they got to work with coach Hoover and coach Craven, it really took them to a whole new level that we always knew they were capable of.”
Jimenez said he was able to watch two playoff wins in person – the 6-1 bi-district victory against Austin LBJ at Mustang Stadium and the 6-1 win against Uvalde at Kerrville Tivy’s Antler Stadium. He followed the Mustangs’ journey to the state semifinals and watched the loss to Waco La Vega 3-1 through a streaming service.
CAPTION: Marble Falls Middle School coach Aaron Jimenez (left) talks to his players after they finish their season undefeated while varsity assistant coach Chuck Woods (right, left) and head coach Rick Hoover listen. Jimenez resigned to become a head coach, while Woods and Hoover have since retired.
He reflected back on the end of his time coaching at Marble Falls.
“When Hoover announced his retirement, I think (Craven and I) both kind of knew that it was going to be one of us. Whether it was me or him, I was happy with both, because the kids were going to get a coach that knew the game very well and loved the game and loved them very well. We’d both been around them for years at that point. So it was a win-win scenario, but at the same time I had told coach Craven that after being an assistant for a while and heading the middle school, I was just sort of ready to get my own experience as a head coach and see if that was something that I could really do and had an interest in pursuing.”
He became the Killeen Harker Heights head coach and guided the team to a 14-6-2 overall record and a bi-district title in 2025. Then he took over the Florence High School girls soccer program under athletic director Robert Draper, who was a football and powerlifting coach at Marble Falls when Jimenez was still on staff. He noted both of those programs had plenty of wonderful moments, especially at Harker Heights where that team rewrote program history.
“At the same time, very bittersweet because I consider coach Craven a friend and of course leaving those boys that I had been with for four years was obviously tough,” he said. “But I think we all kind of understood that it was the best decision for me, I had the boys’ support and of course, I had coach Craven’s support. But he gave me a little pushback at first, but overall he was very supportive of it.”
As he reflected back on his time with the Mustangs, he smiled because he sees how so many were blessed on and off the pitch.
“Those boys, I’d say that they had really the best situation because they got to go through a lot of great coaching, a lot of good experiences, a lot of great competition, leading all the way up to their senior year and seeing them reach the semifinals – that was just a really cool thing to see.”
