RENO - The corner kick had been an Achilles Heel in Carson High's offense until Wednesday's nonleague game at Galena.
Mats Boehnke ran untouched into the penalty box area and headed in a corner kick from Enrique Mendoza with 19 minutes left in the match to give the Senators a 2-2 tie with the Grizzlies.
The tie gives Carson a 6-4-1 record entering Friday's home match against North Tahoe at 7 p.m. Galena, the leader in the High Desert League drops to 10-3-1.
"That's the first goal we've had on a corner kick," Carson coach Jason Koop said. "We haven't been too strong with it. It's been a weak point. The ball was put where it was supposed to be, and Mats was where he should have been. We try to put it in a spot around the 6-yard line."
"We came out a lot stronger in the second half. We started going to the ball more instead of waiting for it. We were a lot more physical. For the way we played in the first half, it was a decent result."
That's exactly the way Galena coach Marco Merlo saw it.
"In the first half, we were first to the loose balls and the 50-50 challenges," Merlo said. "The second half they were the first to those balls. It's a tribute to their effort. They brought it up a notch.
"They provided more pressure. Not a lot of teams (on our side) can do that. They played hard, and he didn't have a lot of subs over there today."
Carson did play without Kevin Brush and Jeremiah Schenzel, both sidelined with injuries The latter is expected to return on Monday, but Brush won't return until Oct. 14.
The first 10-to-15 minutes was a midfield battle, as neither team had a good scoring opportunity.
Galena finally broke through in the 20th minute when Andre Travis beat two Carson defenders along the left side and centered a pass to Donald Harker, who beat Bud Kop for the score.
"Bud hesitated, then came out and then stopped again," Koop said. "He did it twice. If he came out like he started to the first time, there wouldn't have been a goal. We've been working with him on that. You saw what he did the next time (sliding tackle on the Galena forward).
Carson knotted the match at 1 on a goal with about 27 minutes left, and it was a controversial score.
A Carson player lofted a high pass near the goal, and a Galena defender was called for a hand ball. Edgar Gomez rammed the ensuing penalty kick past Daniel Timko.
"The player (and ball) was going out of bounds," Merlo said. "He had no chance to score. It should have been a corner kick in my opinion. It was a harsh decision."
The Grizzlies scored about two minutes later when Loren Woolridge had a ball taken away deep in his own end of the field. Galena's Daniel Hedrick centered the ball and Brett Wilson came streaking untouched into the goal area and scored on a header. According to Merlo, Wilson actually started the sequence with a header.
Gomez had a couple of good scoring opportunities before Boehnke tied the game with his header. Logan Ahl and Gomez misfired on the same sequence with about 10 minutes left in regulation. Gomez, who took over the starting job from Ernesto Ayala, had scored three goals in the last couple of games.
Hedrick had another scoring opportunity in extra time, but couldn't convert.
Contact Darrell Moody at dmoody@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1281.
