Thanks to a distastrous first 20 minutes Wednesday night, the Douglas boys' soccer team finds itself well on the outside of the playoff picture looking in.
Galena scored goals on its first four shots of the game to take a commanding lead and push ahead to a 4-1 win over the Tigers to kick off the second half of the league season in Minden.
Douglas dropped to 3-4-1 in Sierra League play.
"Basically Manogue, Carson and Galena have distanced themselves from the pack," Douglas coach Milko Vasquez said. "Fallon probably won tonight and Tahoe is playing very well.
"We are playing way from the back now. We're in a position now to where we are going to have to fight to make it into the playoffs."
Galena got on the board in the ninth minute on a goal from Carlos Garcia-Partida and extended the game out of reach with three goals in the next 10 minutes, capping the run off with a goal from Alan Smith.
"It was just whoever wanted it more at the start there," Vasquez said. "They had four shots, four goals. That's passion. We just mentally weren't there.
"It's a wake-up call for our seniors. They are either going to start stepping it up or we are going to start planning for next year."
Douglas shut Galena down on defensive through the rest of the game. The Tigers got on the board in the 65th minute when Jaden Mustachio headed a ball at the net that bounced off the cross bar, off a Galena defender and into the net.
Douglas appeared to cut the lead to two a couple minutes later on a direct kick from Corbin Zumpft that bounced around in front of the Galena net and was punched in, but the Tigers were called offsides on the play.
"We got a chance to look at some things today, which was good because we need to make some changes," Vasquez said. "I like the way we responded in the second half.
"We got a good look at some of our younger guys. It was a little chaotic at times, but they played with the intensity I was looking for."
