By Justin Hsieh & Karen Phan
This afternoon, the boys’ varsity soccer team faced off against the Marina High School Vikings in their final league game of the season. In an intense and unexpectedly close showdown, the boys pulled off a narrow, last-minute victory to secure the league championship for the first time in over a decade and remain undefeated in the Sunset Wave League for the first time in team history.
The game began aggressively as both teams fought hard for the ball. Fountain Valley quickly secured possession and dominated for the first 20 minutes of the half until Marina gained control and scored in the 23rd minute, crashing through a gap in the goalmouth as the Barons’ goalkeeper stepped out to block the Viking offense.
Two minutes after the Vikings’ goal, senior Tyler Le made a clean drive into the bottom right of the net off of a pass from senior Austin Penella to tie the game. Both teams continued playing with high energy as Fountain Valley continually forced Marina to play defensively with quick passes and interceptions. Senior co-captain Connor Wright led the Barons’ defense while junior Sebastian Rus and sophomore Masin Marini led the Barons’ offense and came close to scoring several times.
As the half came to a close, however, Fountain Valley lost the ball and gave up a second goal when Marina scored in the 38th minute during a scramble at the goalmouth. The half ended with the Barons trailing the Vikings 1-2.
The second half opened slower than the first as there was relatively even trading of possession between the Barons and the Vikings. After the first ten minutes, Fountain Valley sustained an offensive push against Marina for around another ten minutes and kept the ball upfield to make multiple moves on the Vikings’ goal. In the 14th minute of the half, Le scored on a cross from Wright, again tying the game at 2-2. The Barons maintained their momentum, with senior co-captain Devon Verde leading close drives on the goal in the 16th and 19th minutes of the half, but fell short of tipping the score in their favor.
Around the 20-minute mark of the half, the Vikings took the initiative and maintained pressure on the Baron goal. With multiple saves from junior goalkeeper Jack Nelson and a solid Fountain Valley defense, however, the Barons were able to keep the Vikings at bay until 30 minutes into the half.
After two more drives by Verde on Marina’s goal that broke the Viking’s momentum and restored the back-and-forth that had defined the first ten minutes of the half, the game’s tempo steadily rose as both sides pushed to break the stalemate. A disallowed Marina goal for an offside call in the 36th minute of the half was followed by a close Viking block of a penalty kick from Rus in the 38th minute.
The last five minutes saw this energy escalate, with intense activity around both goals. In stoppage time, Verde sent the ball through a close scuffle at the Vikings’ goal to put the Barons in a 3-2 lead. Returning to their side, the Barons held off a final Marina offensive in the last minutes of the game, blocking a corner kick and taking the ball upfield just as the whistle called the end of the game.
“It was a weird game; we didn’t really play that well,” Head Coach Jason Smith said. “We didn’t finish our chances early, we made mistakes defensively – but it’s kind of like our season. We’ve found a way to win these kinds of games; even when we’re not playing at our best we find a way to win. Today it was no different, we went down to the end. I would have liked an easier game; it wasn’t, Marina gave us a good game. But it was good.”
The Barons finished with an overall record of 9-6-3 and 5-0-1 in league play. They will advance to the California Interscholastic Federation playoffs.
“The team’s performance improved with each game we faced this season. We grew as a team and played with intensity each game to get towards our goal of a league title,” Verde said. “It feels great to get the title and do what we’ve all wanted from the beginning. At the end of the day, we’re all brothers and we did something that we’re probably going to remember for the rest of our lives.”
