Vikings can’t make up early goal, fall 1-0
HOLTVILLE — On Saturday the Holtville girls’ soccer team played 80 friendly-ish minutes against the West Shores Wildcats in the quarterfinal round of the CIF-SDS Division V playoffs.
Of those 80 minutes they didn’t spend more than 10 to 20 in anything resembling danger. But as it happened that was plenty. In fact, three minutes was plenty. That was how much time elapsed before the Wildcats had scored the game’s first and only goal, ending the Vikings’ season, 1-0.
It wasn’t a fancy goal, just a soft toe-tapper from West Shores forward Piedad Bojorquez that Viking goalie Michelle Ambrocio guessed wrong on, but the way these two teams have played each other this year, one goal might as well be the Grand Canyon.
The final score of their meeting at Holtville’s annual Martha Arroyo tournament was also 1-0, though that result favored the Vikings.
This pair of close games is a stark departure from meetings in previous years, which have generally been comfortable Holtville victories.
For a few minutes, the Wildcats’ goal seemed to take the Vikings out of their game. West Shores was getting to the ball better and doing more with it while they had it.
It wasn’t until about minute 15 that Holtville was able to get going on any sort of attack.
Forward Amanda Strahm had a good chance from the left wing when Wildcat keeper Jazmine Rodriguez came out to try to corral her. This left the goal pretty wide open, but Strahm blasted it wide right.
The next 10 minutes of game time saw the Vikings apply fairly consistent pressure. The looks they were getting weren’t any better than so-so, but they were keeping the ball in West Shores territory, and even so-so chances are better than none at all.
There was a bit of a scare at minute 29 when Ambrocio left goal to try and grab a ball that was too high for her and collided with an onrushing Wildcat, going down in a heap, but she was eventually able to exit the field with assistance.
West Shores was awarded a free kick as a result of the collision but the ensuing attempt banged off the right goalpost and the ricochet was booted over the crossbar.
That was the last major action of the half. The second half opened with 10 solid minutes of Holtville on the attack, and some decent scoring opportunities from Jazmine Velasquez and Jasmine Reyes, but nothing that clanged home.
Holtville’s best chance at equalizing came on a penalty kick that followed a goalie collision that was a near mirror image of the one in the first half. This time it was West Shores’ Rodriguez shaken up, but since the incident occurred outside of the goal box, Holtville’s Strahm had to try kicking around a wall.
She nearly did it, but Rodriguez’s backup got gloves on it, and the Wildcats were mostly able to play keep-away from there.