IN SPORTS: GALT WINS; HAWKS, TIGERS FALL
GALT — As the weather got colder and colder on Thursday afternoon, Liberty Ranch’s shooting heated up.
But two early goals from Venture Academy striker Luiz Arevalo sent the fourth-seeded Hawks packing, as No. 5 Venture Academy won their Division IV playoff soccer game 2-1.
“We never expect to lose, but it’s playoffs, and strange results can happen,” Liberty Ranch coach Andrew Fisher said. “Some of the seniors were especially upset, because this will be their last game playing for the high school, but overall they held their head up high, and that’s what I talked to them about was being proud of the season they had. I know that’s typical coach (talk), but it’s true.”
A Leonardo Soto goal for Liberty Ranch in the 64th minute spurred a flurry of activity over the past 16 minutes of the game, with the Hawks taking shot after shot against a Mustangs squad couched in a defensive stance, but of 13 Liberty Ranch shots in the second half, only four of them were on target.
“Once they went up 2-0, in soccer it’s something we call park the bus,” Fisher said. “They go back into a defensive shell where there’s a lot of space around the outside, but for these high-percentage shots inside the box, there’s 10 men inside the box.”
The win sent Venture Academy into the Division IV semifinals, where they will face top-seeded Galt on Tuesday. Liberty Ranch finished with a 14-6-2 record.
“It was a great season. I mean, we scored more than last year, and that’s a plus. We played better,” junior midfielder Anthony Chavez said. “We have a lot of juniors, so we’ll have basically the same team (next year).”
Early in the game, the teams traded possessions as they felt each other out. The Hawks had several runs into Venture Academy territory, but VA goalkeeper Angel Saldana stopped five shots in the first half, and ruined several more chances by leaping to snag crossing passes out of the air.
Liberty Ranch’s Trevor Arnston, meanwhile, found himself under fire a few times, surviving two situations with more than one shot in quick success — once when a shot bounced off the bar back in front of a Venture Academy player, and once when a ricochet from a blocked shot bounced out for a second attempt. In both situations, Arnston kept the net clean with quick reflexes.
The Mustang broke through finally in the 33rd minute when Arevalo found himself in another second-chance situation — a pass bounced among players in the box, and he took a quick swipe to punch it through to the left side.
“It was a little chaotic. That’s been the story of our season, where we don’t clear the ball, or we give up garbage goals, which is frustrating, because we don’t score a lot,” Fisher said. “Defensively we’re pretty sound — like this game, I’d guess they had four or five quality shots and they scored on two of them.”
Liberty Ranch went to halftime down 10, and things got worse just a few minutes into the second half when Arevalo made a run into Hawks territory, then stepped to the side with the ball, the defender leaving him enough time to plant and shoot. The ball sailed over new goalkeeper Eduardo Landin to put Venture Academy up 2-0.
The Hawks played on their heels until Soto took advantage of a quick pass from Rivaldo Zavala, who sent the ball back a few yards to get away from pressure. Soto took the shot from about 20 yards out, and hit the far corner of the net.
Suddenly it was a one-goal game, and Liberty Ranch had a new lease on life.
“I wanted them to ride that wave of momentum, but also stay true to our style of play and not get out of sorts, because you have that adrenaline rushing,” Fisher said. “So it’s both continuing to stoke that fire of momentum and motivation while at the same time trying to stay level-headed and play our style.”
The Hawks dialed the pressure up to 11, and for the remaining 15 minutes, all the play was on Venture Academy’s side of the field except for a couple of runs.
“Basically we had to get a goal. We had to keep possession. That’s basically it,” said Chavez, who launched more than a handful of Liberty Ranch’s shots. “We just felt pressured. Time was ticking, and with the adrenaline, it just wasn’t going our way.”
The Hawks came a foot or two away from tying the game when Mason Ginni made a run up the middle and slid a pass across to Armando Gomez on his left. Gomez shot for the far corner, under pressure from a defender who forced his shot wider, and the ball bounced just outside the post.
That was the closest the Hawks came to forcing overtime. Three more shots went for naught — one off target and two others saved by Saldana.
Despite the abrupt end to the season, the Hawks held their heads high after another successful season, and have more to look forward to next year.
“I thought we had a great season,” Fisher said. “We continue to have a quality program at Liberty Ranch, and I’m really excited, because next year we’ll be in our home stadium so we’ll actually have a place to call home and take some pride in defending a real home turf advantage.”