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Central Union High's Jorge Amparan (left) and Joel Lara of Holtville High battle for possession of the ball during Tuesday¿s Imperial Valley League game in Holtville. (FERNANDO ACOSTA JR. PHOTO / January 9, 2013) |
HOLTVILLE — The Central Union High boys’ soccer team prevailed over Holtville High, 3-2, in a hard-fought match which saw high intensity, seesawing emotions and more than one player from both teams lying injured on the ground at various points.
“I have to give Holtville a lot of credit,” Central head coach Alonso Garcia said. “Despite the fact that they’re a small school, they’re always competitive. They have good players, a good coaching staff, and we expected a tough game from them.”
The Spartans threatened first on their second night of Imperial Valley League action, but it was the Vikings who drew first blood — at the five-minute mark, sophomore forward Julian Castro booted the ball through the knees of senior goalkeeper Luis Taira to give the home team an early advantage.
Shortly thereafter, Castro scored his second goal of the evening, but from there on out, Central made up for ground lost, playing tougher defense and spending more time on Holtville’s side of the field than previously.
“We were ready to play at minute one,” Garcia said, “but a couple of mistakes gave up two goals. That’s just part of the game, so we had to make some adjustments and I’m proud of the way we reacted.”
It didn’t help the Vikings when Castro went down after sustaining an ankle injury while fighting a Central defender. He would not return.
“That definitely hurt us,” Holtville head coach Juan Arroyo said. “He makes up about 80 percent of our offensive performance and we don’t have many players to begin with.”
A half-hour in, Spartan midfielder Jorge Amparan scored on a penalty kick to get his team on the board and it wasn’t much longer until he followed it up with the tying goal, mere seconds before halftime.
“I was confident that my team would come back,” said Amparan, “because I know what we’re capable of. (At halftime) Coach just said we had to play hard the next 40 minutes and leave it all out there.”
The second half was a fast-paced, back-and-forth but the tiebreaker came off the foot of Central’s Alex Rey. Unlike their opponent, Holtville was unable to stage a comeback and time expired with the score at 3-2, in favor of the visiting team.
The Spartans (9-2-2, 2-0 IVL) will host Brawley Union High at 6 p.m. Friday while Holtville (7-3-2, 0-1-2 IVL) will travel to Imperial High at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
“We’re keeping a positive attitude,” maintained Arroyo, “and I think we still have a good chance of winning league.”
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