Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Cardinals Upstage Bruins On Throw-Ins
FARMINGTON BOYS MARCH INTO SEMIFINALS WITH 3-2 WIN AT PULASKI ACADEMY
FARMINGTON — Farmington ( 11- 2- 3) scored three goals off senior Mateo Carbonel’s throwins while winning Friday’ s Class 4 A State quarterfinal 3- 2 over Pulaski Academy on the Bruins’ home field.
“Mateo’s done that a few times this year. When he gets a good running start, he does a great job of dragging his foot, he’s phenomenal at throwing the ball where it needs to be and we were smart. We have headers that we’ve done a really good job of [scoring],” said Farmington head coach Josh Fonville.
Assistant coach Brian Dean said the staff challenged the players beforehand to maintain their heads and if adversity was to come to determine how would they handle that.
“Do we react to it in a positive fashion or do we react to it in a negative fashion?” Dean said.
The environment favored Pulaski Academy ( 14- 4-1), but the Cardinals decided not to be intimidated playing against the Bruins on their home field.
The Cardinals went up on Pulaski Academy 1-0 early in the match on a goal by Caleb Blakely.
“They had a lot of fans. Pulaski’s always had a record of being good, but once you like settle down and you realize if you really want to you can beat anybody,” Blakely said.
Carbonel assisted Blakely’s goal, the first of a trio of throw-ins Carbonel successfully executed to chalk up three assists all on throwins, a spectacular feat to replicate multiple times in one game.
“It’s something crazy. Normally, I’m up front trying to score the goals, but I also have this incredible throw-in. I can throw it in almost to the goal and we treat them like corner kicks for soccer and everyone just piles inside,” Carbonel said.
Shortly after the first goal by Blakely, Gael Atilano scored off another throw-in by Carbonel to put Farmington up 2-0.
“That was a heckuva throw-in by Mateo. He gave me that assist. I think the chemistry is just really on for us right now. That’s how I think we’ve been getting a lot of our goals is we communicate very well, find each other,” Atilano said.
Atilano noted that even though it is just the team’s second official season they’ve all been able to get along very well and get that chemistry going.
The Cardinals held onto their 2-0 advantage at halftime then faced a gut-check in the second half.
“We faced some adversity in the second half against PA. Obviously we switch ends of the field and the sun was right in the face of Steven Gomez in the goalie box and he had some sight problems trying to find the ball battling in the sun,” Dean said.
Gomez had 13 saves against Pulaski Academy. He allowed only goals by Joshua Montgomery and Vaughn Seelicke for the Bruins.
The first Bruin goal cut Farmington’s lead in half at 2-1, but the Cardinals responded beautifully.
Ettore Boochi scored Farmington’s third goal against Pulaski Academy coming up big at a crucial juncture in the match.
“It was a hard moment for us because I believe they just scored to make it 2-1 so it was a hard moment and I knew that I had to put the ball in the net and I did it. It was right after that we knew that we could control the game and we did it,” Boochi said.
Carbonel had a hand in all three Cardinal goals, relishing an art he’s perfected that creates an opportunity for him to gain an impact even when he’s not scoring.
“I just throw them in as hard as I can, try to place it right there for us to just put it in the net and in that match that happened three times so I’m not only scoring, I’m also helping the team get victories like that,” Carbonel said.
The quarterfinal victory pitted Farmington against De Queen in the Class 4A State semifinals Saturday. The Leopards advanced with a 7- 0 win over Warren and a 2-1 defeat of Brookland in the quarterfinal round.