Matthew Fagundas and Spring Creek's Kynan Lee battle for the ball at the Churchill County High School field earlier this season.
SPRING CREEK — The Spring Creek Spartans boy’s varsity soccer team dominated Friday’s match with the Fallon Greenwave 7-0, leaving them with few advances and few chances to score.
The first half was riveting for the Spartans as they scored three goals within the first 20 minutes of play. Senior Mason Dixon had several beautiful runs on goal, and scored two of the first five goals in the first half. Other scorers included Chris DeAngelo in the bottom right corner, senior Keegan Murphy had a sweet touch to score a goal just in the middle of the right of the defending goalie, and senior Kynan Lee had a lower corner touch goal to score.
The Greenwave’s defensive line worked to keep the ball out of their side of the field, but struggled when their midfielders and forwards would either not be there to get the ball, or once they settled the ball, failed to keep it. Fallon ended up defending their half of the field with very few shots on goal, and struggled to keep the ball with their passes in between their individual players. The score favored the Spartans at halftime 5-0.
“We have a very young team,” said Greenwave coach Nate Toigo, “We just need to take these basics to get better and do it day-by-day. The South Tahoe and Elko teams we will be facing have bigger and faster players, so we have to play back more and develop those skills with our younger players.”
Despite the pitfalls in the first half, the Fallon Greenwave seemed to gain more momentum in the second half as the players drove the ball down the sidelines. Midfielders Bryan Ugalde, Cole Hamlin and Bryan Duenes fought hard for the ball as they crossed the ball several times to give their team a few opportunities to try and shoot against the Spartans.
However, the mighty Greenwave defense’s holes allowed the Spartans to score two more goals early on in the second half by DeAngelo, who was assisted in a cross across the box by Dixon, and a final score by the foot of Dixon.
Overall, Spartans goal keeper Jacob Rios fielded a total of two goal saves, whereas Fallon goal keeper Cesar Molina seemed to dive and clutch the ball to prevent any more scoring from the Spartans forwards.
The Spartans attacked Molina with 23 shots against him, and gave the Greenwave several man-to-man ball challenges that decided the outcome of the game. The Spartans fielded 11 corner kicks throughout the game, and the Greenwave excelled in their throw-in passes down the sidelines instead of their corner kicks.
“We’ve played better, but there’s always room for improvement,” said Spartan’s coach Leaf Knotts about the match on senior night. “As for the seniors, I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and working with them for these past four years.”
The Greenwave takes on Incline tonight at 4 p.m. for their last match of the season. This will also be senior day for the boys’ and girls’ teams with seniors being recognized after the girls’ match and before the boys’.
