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| Blanco, Ortiz Help Make it 6 Straight |
By: Kyle Krueger
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Posted: Wednesday, November 4, 2009 2:59 pm
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Steve Harder and his PSA BU-11s took down Corona Eagles Sunday to stay unbeaten in six games.
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ANAHEIM – Goals by Hector Blanco and David Ortiz helped propel the Canyon PSA BU-11 team to a well-deserved 2-0 win Sunday over the Corona Eagles B98 White at Riverdale Elementary.
A staunch defense and stubborn goalie kept the Eagles off the score sheet for PSA's fourth shutout of the season. PSA jumped over the Eagles into third place in the Bronze Gamma division and now hold an impressive record of 5-2-2 and are unbeaten in their last six games.
The win avenged a 1-0 loss to the Eagles in late September and put coach Steve Harder’s team only five points behind the leaders of the division.
Coach Harder knew that a positive result would put his team into a good position with three games left to play. Before the kickoff Harder said “let’s play hard and use our heads … to take the game to these guys.” Blanco was surly listening and played a superb match contributing a goal and an assist as PSAs player of the game. The midfield maestro was confident on the ball while driving his offense forward to the win.
PSA signaled their intent early in the game with Lucas Everett and Raul Junior Morales showing their ball control ability with attacks down the right. Not to be left out, Zachary Gonzalez contributed several strong defensive clearances which broke up the Eagles attack.
Coach Harder was imploring his team to use the flanks in attack. But the coach was delighted when Blanco scored from some distance. Perhaps Blanco’s long ball was hit in search of a PSA forward, but the high ball eluded everyone and bounced over the Eagles goalie into the net. It was a goal from nothing but coach Harder encouraged his team to “be aggressive” and keep up the pressure. Ethan Kwan heeded his coach’s advice with a couple of dangerous runs just before halftime, but the forward had both efforts blocked by the Eagles defenders.
The break brought PSA a chance to reorganize and plan how they were going to go on and win the game. Coach Harder told it to his team straight, “we are up 1-0 but the reality is that that ball should not have gotten past their goalie.” Despite his team’s luck the coach knew the game was not over. “Can you win the second half?” was the challenge he threw down to his players.
The talk clearly affected the youngsters as PSA dominated the early stages of the second half. The Eagles could not manage to get the ball out of their half and Blanco hit a dangerous shot from 22 yards just over the bar. Next, Rodrigo Coba demonstrated his skills with some fine moves on the ball to earn his team a corner. The PSA defense seemed to have set up a wall at midfield as anything that came their way was quickly hit back into the offensive third. Marc Farias in particular was intercepting the Eagles clearances and turning defense into attack.
The pressure paid off for PSA when Everett showed some great hold up play and passed to Blanco. With super vision, Blanco found Ortiz with his back to goal. Ortiz expertly fired on the turn and scored with a high drive to the far corner of the net to ice the game for PSA. The Eagles did not give up, however, and forced the PSA goal keeper Cole Hambright into some late action. Their efforts to get back into the game came to nothing while Hambright finished with a shutout and four saves on the day.
The Canyon PSA boys have an important weekend coming up with three games on the schedule. On Saturday they face the other Corona Eagles B98 team in league play, while Sunday brings League Cup action against the ISC Strikers Red and WCS Academy respectively. |
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| Tags: Canyon PSA, Cole Hambright, David Ortiz, Ethan Kwan, Hector Blanco, Lucas Everett, Marc Farias, Raul Junior Morales, Rodrigo Coba, Steve Harder, Zachary Gonzalez |
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