Marble Falls boys soccer beats Uvalde

Staff photo by Jennifer Fierro

The Marble Falls High School boys soccer team crushed Uvalde 6-1 March 24 in the area round of the Class 4A Division I playoffs.

“I thought we played really well defensively, we possessed the ball,” head coach Ryan Craven said. “We shot the ball. We’ve had two really, really complete games (including the 6-1 victory against Austin LBJ for a bi-district title March 20).”

The Mustangs (16-3-1, 10-1-1 District 26-4A champions) will face Pharr Valley View (11-5-2, 7-1 District 30-4A champion) at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 27, at Harlandale Memorial Stadium, 4002 Roosevelt Ave. in San Antonio.

The Tigers defeated Progreso 2-1 March 24 in the area round.

Against Uvalde, Marble Falls got the first goal within the opening minute of the match when the Coyotes were called for a foul. Drake Taylor took the free kick and sent it toward the goal. Uvalde was there to block it. Instead, it went off the head of a Coyote and directly into the goal for the first score with 39 minutes and 17 seconds left in the first half.

Marble Falls added to the lead when Eliezer Chocoj found Will Guzman on a corner kick for the goal with 22:55 remaining in the half.

Then Chocoj scored on a free kick from about 20 yards out when he sent the ball over the Coyotes’ heads and into the back of the net with 18:14 left for the 3-0 lead at the half.

That advantage held until the Mustangs were awarded a penalty kick with 23:42 left in the game. Though Uvalde stopped the kick, the ball came to Jostin Buezo Lopez on the ricochet, who found the back of the net for the 4-0 lead. Ismayl Ismaylov got the assist.

With about 20 minutes left, Craven began to substitute.

Uvalde scored its only goal with 13:58 remaining.

But Jhoan Amador Green out ran the Coyotes and went one on one with the goalie and scored for the 5-1 advantage with 12:10 left. Erick Flores assisted.

Daniel Dominguez found the back of the net on an assist by Diego Lacayo in the final 40 seconds of the match.

In the first half, the Mustangs had the wind to their backs, which wasn’t by accident, Craven said. He credited assistant coach Roy Gatlin for pointing that out during warm-ups. Then Craven spoke to senior captain Joaquin Aguilar.

“Even more so than that was that they had to look into the sun,” Craven said. “That was huge. I just talked to Joaquin before the game telling him, ‘Hey, make sure we defend the sun. We don’t want to look into the sun.’ When you’re looking into the sun, it’s hard for the goalie to judge the ball. So we won the toss, and he did a good job of making the right call at the end.”

Craven noted many qualities about his Mustangs that he believes will play a factor moving forward.

“The fact that we can play half of the second half with a lot of reserves and still score goals just shows you depth that we have as a team,” he said. “Do I think it helped us Friday night (against LBJ) not to have the play a full 80 minutes with our starters? They got to get off their feet and they were able to do that again tonight, so hopefully that plays a factor in Friday’s night game (against Valley View).”