With a game at home and one on the road, the Escalon varsity soccer boys earned a win and took a loss this week. Meanwhile, the varsity girls were busy recently with games in the Hughson Tournament, on the road.
Varsity Boys
Hosting River Islands on Monday, Dec. 8, it was a 3-2 win for the host Cougars over the Riptide.
“Certainly not our best performance, we weren’t clinical with the chances we created and conceded two goals that should have been avoided,” said head coach Paul Silva. “But we did enough to win.”
The score at half was 3-2, the same as the final, as neither team found the net in the second half.
Scoring for Escalon were Damian Morales, Alessandro Velazquez and Co Northcutt.
Thursday, the team traveled to play against Summerville and were shut out on the road by a 4-0 final.
“They scored their opening goal right before halftime to make it 1-0 at half,” Silva said. “Summerville is a really strong team and we couldn’t create enough quality chances in the game. They also punished us by scoring on set piece plays with their superior size.”
Despite being shut out on the road, Silva said there were some things to build on coming out of the contest.
“Our boys put in great effort and held their own throughout the match,” he said. “We were just lacking in the final third of the field.”
Varsity Girls
The Hughson Tournament was staged over two days, Dec. 5 and 6.
“We opened up against Le Grand. We started out sluggish, but after about 15 minutes we settled in and controlled the rest of the game,” said assistant coach Jim Ball. “We were able to get off 19 shots with nine of them on goal.”
Jasmine Barron notched two goals for the varsity Lady Cougars, while Reagan Baker had “an amazing corner kick” that hooked into the back of the net, said Ball.
“Emma Rangel who recently moved from defense to center midfielder had a great game and had one assist with Reagan Baker having the other,” Ball added.
The girls won the game by a 3-0 decision.
Their second game was against Millennium and though they peppered the netminder for the Falcons with shots, they couldn’t get one to go in.
“I thought we played well,” said Ball. “We took 23 shots, led by Reagan Baker and Adriana Romero, each having six.”
The team played well defensively, but the game ended in a 0-0 tie.
“Going in to our third game of the tournament, we were sitting in fourth place by a point, and we needed a win against Modesto to move on,” Ball said. “Modesto took a 2-0 lead at the half. We were getting crushed by injuries. By the start of the second half, we had five starters out.”
Even losing that many, Ball said “the rest of the team stepped up” and were paced by the effort from Ava Rodriguez, called up from the JV team for this tournament.
“She played great for us in the second half,” Ball said. “We scored off a corner kick by Adriana Romero that Rebecca Wampler was able to direct into the goal.”
Escalon lost to Modesto, 3-1, and were eliminated from the tournament.
“The coaches were proud of how our reserve players played off the bench in the second half,” Ball said.
Keeping up a busy schedule, the girls were at River Islands on Dec. 9 and won there, 1-0.
“Although we won, it was a rough game for us,” Ball admitted. “We were slow to the ball and didn’t seem to be focused on the game.”
The girls did control the entire game, though, with River Islands never really threatening to score. The game was tied 0-0 at the half.
“The real threat that River Islands had was on a corner kick,” explained Ball. “However, our keeper Payton Abbott made a great play to punch the ball out. Rebecca Wampler was able to control it and sent it up the left side to Jasmine Barron who was able to outrun the defense and secure our only goal of the day.”
