Marble Falls boys soccer beats Fredericksburg

CAPTION: Marble Falls’ Toni Flores Cinfuentez makes his varsity debut by scoring a goal to help ensure a win against Fredericksburg Feb. 10. Photo by Stennis Shotts

The Marble Falls High School boys soccer team defeated Fredericksburg 3-1 Feb. 10 after tying San Antonio Davenport 1-1 Feb. 6 all in District 26-4A play.

The Mustangs (6-3-5, 2-1-1) got the hot start against Fredericksburg (3-5-1, 2-2) when senior Joaquin Aguilar found the back of the net 15 seconds into the match.

“Drake Taylor on the opening kickoff just kicked it deep to Eli Chocoj and Eli flicked it to Joaquin,” head coach Ryan Craven said. “Joaquin took a couple of touches and just kicked it as hard as he could. And the ball whizzed right by the goalie’s head.”

Though the goal wasn’t the result of a set play, Craven said coaches had told the Mustangs they saw opportunities for quick goals like that because of what each player brings to the pitch.

“We’d been kind of talking about how we’re starting too slow, and we want to get the ball down that opposite end faster,” he said. “Now did we draw it up to score a goal like that? No, but they might have drawn it up in the dirt, so we’ll give the kids all the credit for that one.”

That quick goal resulted in a couple of positives, the coach said.

“Honestly, it set the tone and getting breathing room to maybe make an error later on in the game, which we kind of did,” he said. “We’ve been challenging the entire team offensively. The way our season’s kind of gone is our defense can’t really afford to make any mistakes whatsoever, because our games are 1-0, 2-1, so we’ve been challenging them, and they’ve responded really well honestly of getting ahead early and not letting off the gas, and I thought that it was great that we scored early.”

Not letting off the gas resulted in taking a 2-1 lead at the half. Taylor set up Toni Flores, a junior varsity player Craven called up after he scored three goals against Davenport last week.

Flores’ first goal on the varsity was a thing of beauty.

“Taylor had a free kick, and we’ve been talking about wanting him to take more free kicks because he’s got to leg on him, and he drilled it all the way into the six-yard box,” Craven said. “It was kind of funny. Toni kind of chested it, kind of bounced it around, and he just hit it with the back of his heel with his back facing the goal, and it went in.”

Aaron Luna scored the final goal on a deflection from 20 yards out.

“He put it in the back of the net,” the coach said. “He’s one of our captains, so it’s good to see a captain get a goal.”

The Mustangs took a 1-0 lead against Davenport in the first half when Aguilar scored thanks to an assist from Ismayl Ismaylov.

Marble Falls thought it had scored a second goal but officials took the goal off the board.

“We scored on a great cross from Ismayl to DeMarco Davis,” Craven said. “They called us off sides and looking at the film, we were onside by two yards, so that was a bad call. It was a well-officiated game, just the linesman missed it really bad.”

Fredericksburg and Davenport’s goals were the result of “mental lapses,” Craven said.

“It wasn’t that we weren’t playing well,” he said. “We just kind of like lost our focus for a brief second and allowed (Fredericksburg’s) best player to get a shot off and he scored and then we woke up and defended and shut him down the rest of the game and battled. And we were able to get a goal late in the game with about 10 minutes left to really kind of seal the fate of the game.”

Davenport scored on a ricochet when the Mustangs didn’t get back fast enough to get set up.

“As a coach, I have to get them prepared for that better,” Craven said. “Against Fredericksburg, they were very consciousness about getting back and getting set up on free kicks. There was no lollygagging and catching our breaths. They have learned from every mistake they’ve made this year and they don’t repeat it, so that’s encouraging to see.”

Marble Falls travels to Canyon Lake (3-11, 0-4) Friday, Jan. 13, and welcomes Bandera (7-7-1, 2-1-1) Tuesday, Feb. 17, to end the first round. The junior varsity plays at 5 p.m. and the varsity at 7 p.m.

CAPTION: Marble Falls senior Joaquin Aguilar started the fireworks early with the match’s first goal in the Fredericksburg win. Photo by Stennis Shotts