By Kyle Kunz
The boy’s soccer teams of Carson High School and North Valleys High School met Saturday at Carson High School. With the match under way, it was Carson who would strike first with Ryan Galvan who found the back of the net in the 16th minute of the game.
Soon after North Valleys would return the favor with the equalizer in the 25th minute to tie up the score at 1-1. Toward the end of the first half, Ryan Galvan got yet another pretty good look, but sailed the shot just high.
In the second half, it looked like all North Valleys. The Panthers had a lot of good looks at goal and finally finished one in the 73rd minute. They also had a shot off the post just a couple minutes earlier and a wonderful opportunity to tap it in to go up 3-1 after and excellent cross, but shanked it high.
Head Coach Mike Alavarez said, “They seemed like they were just conditioned a little bit better, which certainly was a problem in the second half.”
When I asked what the biggest missing factor was, he replied: “Playing a team with a very similar play style in passing and offensive threats, it comes down to whoever is faster and today they were just a little faster.”
One thing noticed about the game was that Carson’s front line wasn’t able to really make the runs late in the game that they were able to make earlier. I asked Mike Alavarez about why he did not sub them out and responded with: “In a tight game like this, when you put a player in with a different skill set it changes the dynamic of the game because all the players coordinate differently with one another.
Carson plays again at McQueen this Wednesday at 3:30, but the final score of this one North Valleys: 2, Carson: 1.
