By Brandon Nguyen
This afternoon, the boys’ varsity soccer played against Laguna High School. In a tense, aggressive game with many close calls, the game ended in a tie, 1-1.
The game started as a mild back and forth as both teams were sizing each other up. It quickly became more aggressive as the Barons pushed the ball down the field and senior Jonathan Swete narrowly scored. In the seventh minute, the Barons were able to heavily pressure Laguna on defense resulting in a tense scuffle between the two teams.
Soon after, Laguna returned the favor by trapping senior Malachi Wright in a corner and almost scoring, but hitting the side of the goal. Laguna then switched up their strategy playing a mid-field defense. The Barons responded with aggression when Swete’s head collided with a Laguna player. Senior Andres Rodriguez took possession of the ball and with the assistance of junior Mason Marini found an opening shot, but kicked it sideways, missing the goal.
“Collectively, we were there. We let the rest get to our heads and played average overall this game as a team. Every now and then we had fallacies with many chances where we could have finished through and scored. We should have closed it out more than once and won,” Marini said.
In the 20th minute, the Barons and Laguna head bounced the ball over eight times and it fell into Marini’s possession. Junior Marini quickly pushed the ball down the field, but was met by an ambush of Laguna players and got blocked. The ball continued to move across the field, never staying on one side for too long. Marini then got elbowed in the stomach resulting in a pause of the game. In the 37th minute, Wright received a throw in from the sidelines and had a successful header into the goal ending halftime 1-0.
“I was excited, this was my first goal this season. To be honest, I felt the referee was a little biased, but on our end there were definitely goals we should have scored,” Wright said.
The second half opened with Laguna determined to score. Laguna aggressively forced the Barons on defense and almost scored in, but the ball landed on the rim of the goal, two minutes in. The Barons returned the momentum and a scuffle broke out, allowing senior Sebastin Rus a penalty shot which landed in front of senior Dylan Duong who narrowly missed.
With Laguna in control of the ball, they broke through the Barons defense and neared the goal. Senior Connor Trapp, the goalie, was pressured with multiple Laguna players in the penalty box. Occupied, Laguna found a small opening kicking the ball successfully, in the tenth minute of the second half making the score 1-1.
The game continued contentious with a Laguna player jumping on top of senior Kristopher Anderson in an attempt for a header, giving Anderson a penalty kick. The last 10 minutes of the game remained at a high tempo, ultimately ending 1-1.
“The seniors played hard today on our senior day. We tried to do as well as we could and unfortunately ended with a draw today. We definitely had our chances and Cantor Wright scored a great header goal on senior night, but we’ll keep moving forward,” head coach Jason Smith said.
The boys’ next game is April 26 against Marina.
