Vikings Soccer Falls in One-Goal Affair at West Henderson

After a busy week featuring back-to-back matches, the Avery soccer team got a small reprieve as it played a single match last week, traveling to Mills River to take on the West Henderson Falcons. Despite playing without its best defender and an ailing scoring leader, the Big Red hung tough with the Falcons but inevitably fell on the wrong end of a 3-2 defeat.

West Henderson struck first as Delfino Islas scored the first goal for the Falcons in the opening five minutes of the contest. The Avery defense settled down, however, and held the Falcons scoreless for the remainder of the first half of play. Avery tallied the equalizer in the final seconds of the half when Kyle Griewisch connected for a goal.

“Our biggest concern has been how our chemistry is going to work with Daniel Huff still out with injury. Kyle had not been feeling well and could hardly practice the day before. He had to sit down several times during warm-ups, so we have our best defensive player out and our best offensive player hurting,” Avery head soccer coach Tom Evaul said after the match. “Kyle had about four breakaways against the goalkeeper, and I think if he felt up to par he would have scored on those. Kicks he normally scores on went straight to the goalie. Late in the half after a couple of shots at the keeper he was dragging so we brought him off to rest. When he came off he said “I’ll score before halftime, I promise.”, and sure enough, with 16 seconds left in the half he scored a goal to tie the score at halftime.”

As the second half ensued the Falcons took advantage of scoring opportunities to tally a pair of goals. Jake Riportella scored in the 45^th minute to put West up by a 2-1 margin, and tallied his second goal on a penalty kick near the 60 minute mark to double its advantage to 3-1.

The Vikings reduced the margin to a single goal at the 70 minute mark. A throw-in by Avery senior Cody Shadoin was blasted in goal by Jorge Arreola. In the closing minutes of the match Avery created multiple opportunities to tie the match, but was unable to find the back of the net for the equalizer as West held on for the win.

“I was pleased with the guys. I thought they played hard,” Coach Evaul said. “Not having Daniel on defense and having Kyle not feeling well, the rest of the guys picked up their intensity and played much better than they did at North Henderson. It was a winnable game, but we didn’t have just what it took to put it away.”

The match could have been a greater margin of victory at West, had it not been for strong play in goal from keeper Morgan Bounds and determined play from a number of Avery defenders. “Morgan did a great job in goal. The score could have been higher on their part, but he made several great saves,” Coach Evaul added. “Brock Yackey has been filling in for Daniel Huff and has done a great job of coming around and holding down that key position.”

Avery played at Draughn on Monday night and will host Providence Academy at the special starting time of 5:30 p.m. Thursday in its home opener at MacDonald Stadium. A report on both matches can be found in next week’s edition, as well as online at the Journal-Times Sports Blog at: www.ajtsports.blogspot.com