By Justin Hsieh & Karen Phan
Yesterday afternoon, boys’ varsity soccer fought hard against Pacifica High School in their first preseason game. With a dominating offensive effort, the Barons dealt a spectacular 6-0 shutout to the Mariners in a game that bodes well for their upcoming season.
“We were expecting a good game against Pacifica,” junior Derek Nakagawa said. “As a team, we wanted to start the season right with a win.”
The game opened into a period of movement up and down the field as control of the ball shifted back and forth between teams. The Barons picked up the pace 15 minutes in and took several shots on goal, but the game quickly lapsed back into trading possession. Junior Sebastian Rus broke the stalemate in the 28th minute with a clean header into the goal from a corner kick by senior Dakota Whitsel.
Rus and Whitsel continued to lead the offense after the first goal until Rus took a drive past Pacifica’s goalkeeper and straight into the goal in the 35th minute of the game. After two close shots on goal by senior Austin Pennella, the half closed with the Barons in a commanding 2-0 lead.
“In the first half, we started off a bit slow and rusty, but we slowly eased into it,” senior Tyler Le said. “After we made a couple of substitutions, the game definitely picked up and we found our rhythm.”
Only six minutes into the second half, Fountain Valley earned its third goal with Rus receiving a cross from senior Will Oakes to score. The Barons’ overwhelming offensive pressure forced the Mariners to play defensively, but they could not keep up and allowed the Barons several more opportunities to score.
Pacifica gave up the fourth goal of the game as Whitsel shot the ball into the net in the 57th minute, and Rus scored minutes later with a cross from senior Devon Verde. Le and Penella made several advances on goal before the Mariners briefly stole the ball.
The Barons regained possession and pressured the Mariners for nearly fifteen minutes until Verde crossed the ball to sophomore Masin Marini, who took the final touch on a goalmouth scramble to score a sixth goal. Both teams then locked into an intense battle for the ball, but despite multiple final pushes to score, Pacifica could not penetrate Fountain Valley’s defense and the game ended with the Barons winning 6-0.
“It was a good first game for us,” Head Coach Jason Smith said. “It was an opportunity to run a system, get everyone playing time – we got everybody in and we knew this was going to be a game where we would play everybody just to get them some experience and see how things went and by doing that we were still able to get a result. It was good.”
The team’s goal for this season is to win the Sunset League and advance to the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) playoffs. Last season, Fountain Valley fell short of winning the Sunset League by one game and made it to the CIF quarterfinals.
“We were Division Two last year, now we’re Division One so it’s going to be tougher in playoffs,” Smith said. “But we expect to try to win league. We’d be disappointed if we don’t.”
Smith believes the next two games will be a good measure of how the team will fare in season.
“We have a tough week ahead; next week Santa Ana comes to us, they’re a top ten team in Division One, then we play JSerra, that’s another top team Division One,” Smith said.
The Barons will play Santa Ana High School at home next Wednesday at 3 p.m. and at JSerra Catholic High School next Friday at 6:30 p.m.
“We know that the upcoming season won’t be an easy one, but we are all up for the challenge,” Nakagawa said. “This is the first of many wins and will hopefully carry onto season.”
