Lindsay suffers first loss
Washington Union avenges playoff loss
In a rematch of last season’s CIF Central Section Division IV quarterfinal boys soccer game between the then fourth-seeded Lindsay Cardinals and fifth-seeded Washington Union Panthers, it was the Panthers who came out on top with a 3-2 win at Frank Skadan Stadium in Lindsay Thursday evening.
Playing with a “sour taste in their mouth,” Washington Union (3-0) scored two goals in the first 20 minutes of the game for the early 2-0 lead and then scored the game-winning goal in the final five minutes of the first half.
“I kind of tried to set the tone early, even in the warm-ups, knowing that they were going to come out strong cause the fact that we eliminated them left a sour taste in their mouth,” LHS head coach Tony Godoy said. “I told [my team] at [halftime], they just smacked us in the face. They came out so hard, they wanted it more. And then it doesn’t matter how good you are, 3-0 is so hard to come back on.”
In the 20th minute of the second half Lindsay (2-1) got on the board after a successful penalty kick from senior Marcos Ceballos after a Washington Union player was called for a hand ball. Junior Moises Betencourt scored 16 minutes later on a free kick for the final score of the game.
Although he was the team’s leading scorer last season with 37 goals and the All-east Sequoia League’s Most Valuable Player, Ceballos wasn’t able to take as many shots and Lindsay’s offense struggled due to the loss of former Cardinal Steven Moreno who graduated. He was last year’s All-orange Belt Boys Soccer Player of the Year and now plays for California State University, Monterey Bay. Godoy called Moreno the team’s “best offensive player.”
“They want to run — it’s easy to say, ‘Let’s run the same formation as last year.’ But when you lose a player like that — just a super strong offensive player — you have to change everything because of that one guy so it’s really hard to replace that one player,” Godoy said.
Despite the outcome of the game, Godoy said it was too soon to worry and liked some of the
things he saw out of his team.
“The fact that we kept fighting, scored two in the second half, it was a good note,” he said. “It’s no time to panic. It’s three games into the season, still trying to figure out who goes where. We had big players leave last year so it’s always going to be hard to replace them. I told them after the game, if this were a week before playoffs then it’s time to panic but we’ve got 25 more games to figure it out. And we will.”
One place the Cardinals are still figuring things out at is the goalkeeper position. Senior and three-year varsity player Braian Alvarado and junior Albert Gutierrez each played a half for Lindsay.
“We have two great goalies, so I have confidence in both of them,” Godoy said. “I told them before the half, ‘Braian Alvarado’s got the first half and Albert Gutierrez has the second.’ It’s not until 10 games into the season I’ll figure out who’s my go-to goalie.”
Last season, the Cardinals (23-3-1, 8-1 ESL) defeated the Panthers 3-2 in a comeback win at home en route to a Valley title.
“But I told them at the beginning of the year, this is a new-look team,” Godoy said. “This is nothing like last year. We lost our defensive player of the year [Isaias Acevedo] and offensive player of the year [Moreno]. Two guys like that are game-changers. We just got to rotate and figure everything out. Start from scratch.”