By Justin Hsieh and Karen Phan, Staff Writers
This afternoon, the boys’ varsity soccer team went up against the Edison High School Chargers and narrowly lost despite a valiant ending goal that put the final score at 1-2.
The teams began the first half fiercely, possession constantly changed and both sides drove far into their opponents’ halves of the field. Although both teams’ defense held solid for most of the half, the Chargers managed to score in the last minutes for a halftime score of 0-1.
“Our guys worked hard, they played hard… but [there was] just lack of execution,” said head coach Jason Smith. “We didn’t execute, we didn’t connect passes when we had opportunities, we didn’t execute and it was just lack of quality. We made mistakes.”
The second half began in the same fashion as the first, with a great deal of motion up and down the field. However, after the first few minutes, the Chargers began to dominate the field and kept the ball up in the Barons’ territory for most of the half until scoring their second goal in the 25th minute.
“[For] both of [Edison’s] goals, we had opportunities to make a couple tackles on a player and we didn’t, and they scored from it. Just not a good day,” said Smith.
In the last five minutes of the game, sophomore Malachi Wright made an up-close shot into the opponents’ goal to bring the score to 1-2. Although the Barons rallied after Wright’s goal, with junior Dakota Whitsel taking a close shot at goal in the last seconds of the game, they were unable to score and ended the game one point down.
“We always want to do well against Edison. They have a good team, so we know we always have to play well to beat them. Today just wasn’t our day. We’re our own worst enemies, so it’s just a matter of playing well, having confidence in ourselves and getting a result,” said Smith.
Despite the loss, Smith is confident in the boys’ abilities and in their season prospects.
“We’ve lost three in a row, but we’ve lost three games to good teams: Santa Ana, Edison and Corona del Mar. We’ll bounce back,” said Smith. “[I’m looking for us to] play with confidence, and believe that we can win.”
The Barons’ next game is away against Laguna Beach High School this Friday. Support them there or at home when they play Marina High School next Wednesday at 3 p.m.
