Kids just want to play.

So, when Bob Hope, playing in its first season as a Texas Christian Athletic League school, struggled to find games, early frustration had set on a program that tasted some success in the University Interscholastic League.

“In the beginning, it was really frustrating because no teams wanted to play us,” senior forward Juan Hernandez said. “All I wanted to do was play and nobody wanted to play us.

“We just kept playing and doing what we know to do, and in the end, we succeeded.”

Which was winning games.

After just 10 matches, Bob Hope’s boys won a state championship.

The Eagles (8-2) capped the season with an 8-0 win over San Antonio St. Anthony Catholic in TCAL’s Division I final in The Woodlands on Friday, but that was just half the reason for the Port Arthur charter school to celebrate.

Bob Hope’s girls team won state as well Friday at the same facility. Details on their season, however, were not available on TCAL’s website, and Bob Hope girls coach Olivia Huerta could not be reached.

“We’ve been practicing all season for this,” Hernandez said. “We just practiced hard, and it’s just hard work at the end of the day.”

Bob Hope, which opened in 2010, made the move from UIL to TCAL over the summer as a way to help its student-athletes focus on fundamentals and compete on a “level playing field,” principal Rick Frey told The News in a January 2018 article. The school, which had struggled in other sports, plans to return to the UIL for the 2020-22 realignment cycle.

Soccer has been the brightest spot for Bob Hope, although the school has never won a district championship. The Eagles boys team made their furthest UIL playoff run last April, falling to Huffman in a shootout in the 4A Region III quarterfinal in Beaumont after a 3-3 tie through overtime.

“Last year against Huffman, that was really devastating,” Hernandez said. “That was farthest we had gone.”

Many of the Houston-area TCAL programs were aware of the Eagles’ success.

“We tried to contact a lot of Houston schools, but they knew were in UIL and they wouldn’t really play us,” second-year Eagles coach Rafael Reyes said. “They said it was better not to play us. The only games we could get were UIL schools.”

That left the Eagles with a short window to find games, since UIL soccer begins each January. The TCAL season started in December.

“We came in the season expecting more games, the same type of games as in the UIL,” senior Ricky Perez Jr. said. “We were all kind of disappointed. We wanted more games. This was our last year. I basically had to motivate the guys, no matter how many games we play, we had to work hard and play our best.”

With a limited number of soccer programs in TCAL, the league is not broken into districts like in the UIL. Based off overall records, Reyes said, Bob Hope drew the No. 1 seed in a three-team state tourney, meaning it only needed to play the winner between the other two teams.

St. Anthony beat Houston Heights to draw Bob Hope, and the Eagles waltzed in the damp Houston-area atmosphere. Hernandez scored three goals in the title match.

“We came into the game expecting more of a challenge,” Perez said. “We came in and scored three goals in the first 5 minutes. When we started dominating, we knew it was our game.”

And it was Bob Hope’s season — for the boys and the girls.

“It was just a happy moment for me and my family,” Perez said, describing the ride home after the title games. “They knew how hard I worked to get to this point. I’m pretty sure the bus ride was pretty loud. It was just full of happiness. We just went crazy.”

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I.C. Murrell: 721-2435. Twitter: @ICMurrellPANews