Stockdale's boys soccer season ends as offense is silenced
| Tuesday, Mar 09 2010 10:25 PM
Last Updated Tuesday, Mar 09 2010 11:07 PM
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Dos Pueblos' #10 Danny Rowell and Stockdale's #9 Oscar Perez battle for control of the ball.
Dos Pueblos' #3 Branden Tangel and Stockdale's #7 Jacob Garber go high to gain control of the ball.
If it had been horseshoes, Stockdale would have been in good shape.
The Mustangs came tantalizingly close with several scoring attempts during their Division I Southern California Regional first round boys soccer game against visiting Goleta-Dos Pueblos on Tuesday.
Unfortunately for Stockdale, none of them found their way into the back of the net..
That left the door open for the Chargers, which recovered from a slow start to claim a 1-0 victory on a second-half goal by Rodrigo Perez.
"The game is putting the ball in the net not putting the ball close," Stockdale coach David Atkinson said. "Those are the things we deal with. Its disappointing, yes, it is to end our season this way. But the boys have done a great job this season.
"This is going to hurt but I don't want it to take the shine off of what they've accomplished."
Top-seeded Stockdale (13-6-5) dominated possession during a scoreless first half, with four shots on goal before intermission, including a 40-yard blast by Marc Jones in stoppage time that was straight toward the middle of the goal but just high.
Despite a much stronger effort by No. 8 Dos Pueblos (16-6-7) in the second half, the Mustangs continued to find chances to score.
In the 42nd minute Tyler Schleicher missed left from point-blank range after receiving a well-placed feed from Jones.
Eight minutes later, Sukreet Cheema made a nice run up the middle toward the Dos Pueblos goal but his pass to Bijan Mirkazemi resulted in a near-miss from 15 yards.
"We had the chances," Atkinson said. "We should have put them away but we didn't. That's kind of the nature of soccer. That what makes it so great."
In the 66th minute Perez headed a corner kick from Kenny Lara past Stockdale goal keeper David Vivian for the game's only goal.
"I feel pretty confident heading the ball, especially with a perfect center that my teammate Kenny gave me," Perez said after tallying his team-leading 15th goal of the season. "He centered it right to the back post and I had the whole goal to myself. I just had to put my head into it."
It was one of six second-half shots on goal by the Chargers, who played like a different team after getting what their coach Tovi Eliasen described as "a kick in the pants" at halftime.
"I was quite disappointed with that first half just because we know the quality that we have and I really don't feel like we showed that today, even in the second half," Eliasen said. "But at least it was better. We created some quality chances and I did feel that we were going to get that goal to send us through. It just took a lot longer than it should have."
