Friday, Sep. 14, 2012

Tigers open league play vs. defending champs

Los Banos High's soccer team knew it was going to have tougher competition in league play, and a 9-1 loss to defending champion Central Valley proved that prediction true.

"Nobody likes to lose 9-1," first-year Los Banos varsity coach Wes Wing said. "But in a sense, as far as performance goes, what we need to work on, I'm kind of grateful for it as far as they exposed everything I've been stressing in practice and everything the team knows we need to get better at was exposed in this game."

Omar Orozco scored four times for CV (11-1-1, 1-0-0 WAC), and Ozzie Ramos added a hat trick. LB's only goal came on a free kick from about 20 feet outside the penalty box. Chino Cuevas sent a floater over Central Valley's wall of defenders that looked like an easy catch for CV's goalkeeper, but it slipped through his fingers and barely crossed the line before he grabbed it.

"It felt good that we got under their skin. It wasn't so much the fact that they got scored on, but they made a big deal about it," Wing said. "When you're winning 7-0 and somebody scores on you, it's like OK, we lost the shutout, big deal. But they really took it personally."

But CV's superior control and movement of the ball broke down LB's back line and made it a long day for the Tigers. LB held out for about 20 minutes until an Orozco goal, and then a wave of Central Valley goals gave the Hawks a 5-0 halftime lead.

Pacheco traveled to Central Catholic on Thursday (results were unavailable at press time), and LB travels to Patterson (5-1-1, 1-0 WAC) on Tuesday.

Enterprise reporter David Witte can be reached by phone at 388-6565 or by e-mail at sports@losbanosenterprise.com