Penalty cards fly as Calexico bests Central
EL CENTRO — At long last, a smidgen of clarity is beginning to emerge from confusion in the three-legged horse race that is the Imperial Valley League boys’ soccer championship hunt, thanks to the result of Thursday night’s match between Calexico and Central Union.
For most of the year, it’s been clear that the top spot was going to belong to one of three possible teams: The Bulldogs, the Spartans or the Southwest Eagles, but determining which of the three is most worthy of the honors was exceedingly difficult, because the schools developed the highly annoying habit of tying one another.
First it was Central tying Caleixco at Calexico, 0-0, way back on Dec. 11.
One month later it was the Eagles fighting the Bulldogs to a draw, this time 2-2.
Then, on Tuesday, the Eagles visited the Spartans and tied them as well, in a 3-3 barn-burner. Things were getting nowhere fast.
But on Thursday the Bulldogs took it upon themselves to break the cycle, topping the Spartans 3-1 at Cal Jones Field to grab sole possession of first (at least until the result of Southwest’s game versus Brawley later this evening is known).
The cycle wasn’t the only thing Calexico seemed out to break.
They played a highly aggressive style in which manifested itself in a series of increasingly loud thumps.
These thumps came in many varieties.
There was the classic foot-onball, of course, but there was also body-on-body, body-on-ground and — on one unfortunate occasion — fist-on-face.
Much of this hard contact took place in the second half, which the Spartans’ entered holding a slim, 1-0, lead after scoring in the final five minutes of the opening frame on a Miguel Pantoja header.
The Bulldogs appeared to feel hard-done-by — being down even by one goal after they had controlled the ball for most of the game — and seemed determined to get on the board by whatever means necessary, and if one of those means was bodying up Spartans in pursuit of the ball well …
Central coach Demian Rodiles took exception to the degree of Calexico’s physicality, saying after the game that, “You can tell Southwest and us are just playing hard. … These guys (Calexico) hate our guts.”
Rodiles’ ire stemmed mostly from an incident that occurred with about 28 minutes to go in the second half.
At the time, the Bulldogs were still down 1-0, but they were threatening.
The Spartans had been having trouble mounting much of an attack after injuries felled Pantoja and fellow starting forward Manuel Ortiz.
Central’s defense had been holding up okay, but the Bulldogs were bringing the heat.
Calexico was setting up for a corner kick when a verbal exchange and some light jostling between the Bulldogs’ Kevin Monge and Central goalie Jose Berlin-Torres led to a physical altercation.
Monge struck Berlin-Torres full in the face and retreated into the goal, fists raised in the face of a group of irate Spartans.
The refereeing crew quickly intervened before anymore punches were thrown, but there was some shoving.
Monge was, of course, shown a red card and ejected, but the referees also booted Central defender Luis Marquez, for apparently retaliating.
It took a while for play to resume after this.
The Central sideline was furious, and a shouting match briefly took precedence over the soccer one.
When things finally got going again, they all went Calexico’s way.
Both sides were down a man, but the Spartan’s seemed more affected by Marquez’s absence than Calexico did by Monge’s.
Central tried playing keepaway, but the Bulldogs always got the ball back, and when they did, they came down the field like a pack of hellions.
Calexico tied it up at one with about 13 to go, with Alex Serrano finding Luis Viramontes in the middle of the field for the outside-of-the-foot score.
After that, a series of nice solo plays by Berlin-Torres and defender Isaiah Wood helped keep things knotted for a while, but then the Bulldogs scored twice after the five-minute mark (one from Daniel Velasquez and one from Brandon Galvan), to seal the game up tight.
Calexico was jubilant afterward; Central, dejected.
Coach Rodiles was convinced the game had turned on the double red cards.
“I think the whole game changed on the ‘phantom’ red card [the referee] gave us after the other player literally punched my goalie, and he wants to make it even like my player did something,” he said
“That’s one of our main defensive players. Taking him out changed the whole game,” he reiterated, before continuing, “We’re going to protest this (the red card).”
Coach Javier Bernal of Calexico, felt that the win was in the natural course of events, saying that his team “dominated most of the game.”
He’s already looking ahead at the games to come, noting that “[the win] gives us the advantage in league, but we still have to play Southwest one more time, and they’re a tough team.”
“We know we’re going to qualify for CIF — even if we don’t win league — because we’re Division I, so we’re fighting for a good ranking and maybe get a bye. It depends on how things fall into place.”