Taft 4, Sweet Home 1
Coming off a win a week earlier, the Huskies lost 4-1 to Taft on Thursday on the road.
“It wasn’t our best performance,” said Coach Eric Stutzer. “We had another situation where out of the gate, we had a penalty kick called.”
Taft got ahead 1-0, and the Huskies held the Tigers off through halftime.
The Huskies made some adjustments, Stutzer said. They were getting excited again, and then a defensive error cost them another goal.
Nick Rodgers was able to score a penalty kick to put the Huskies on the board, 2-1; but it wouldn’t be enough to turn the tide of the game.
Off a corner kick, Taft slipped the ball through Patric Dishaws hands to get ahead 3-1.
“He had a good game,” Stutzer said. “He had nine great quality saves. It was just one of those flubbed goals.”
That got the team down a bit, Stutzer said, then “an unfortunate call made at the top of the box cost us a goal.”
Taft scored the penalty kick through the top corner of the goal for the final score, 4-1.
The Huskies faced some adversity on the offensive end, with Egan Shamek injured in the first 10 minutes, Stutzer said. Brenner Roberts was out in midfield, and Rodgers and Alsonso Perez were both banged up by the end of the game and playing at less than 100 percent. Perez was hit in the back of calf at the beginning of the second half, and it seemed to affect him throughout the rest of the game.
“All three of our good scorers were a little bit gimpy,” Stutzer said. Arguably, the team’s top four or five players were at less than 100 percent or out of the game.
“Our pace of play was off,” Stutzer said. “We lost the game because we didn’t set the pace of play. We got our heads down a bit.”
The Huskies possessed the ball probably 30 to 40 percent of the time, Stutzer said, which is a real reflection on the pace of the game.
“We didn’t have the good passing we did against Pleasant Hill,” he said. It was just a different team.
Had this been the same team that faced Pleasant Hill, Stutzer thinks the Huskies could have won the game.
Two players stood out throughout the game, Stutzer said. Freshman Rowland Lupoli came up from the JV squad to play his first varsity game, and Ty Schilling won a lot of 50-50 balls. Both were real standouts winning the ball midfield.
It was a good experience for the Huskies as they face threats against Newport, scheduled for Tuesday this week, and Sisters on Thursday.
The Huskies can handle Taft, Stutzer said, and that’s what they need to take into the next few games, which are winnable. They just need to control the pace of play and get control of the mental game.
Next Tuesday, the Huskies will travel to Sutherlin.
They are 1-2.