Boys soccer teams travel to Santa Rosa for non-league matches
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SANTA ROSA >> Both the Kelseyville High School varsity and junior varsity boys soccer teams found themselves on the wrong end of 4-0 scores to Elsie Allen High School during non-league action Monday in Santa Rosa.
In varsity action, Elsie Allen pulled away with a three-goal outburst in the second half.
“Elsie was absolutely the better team tonight,” Kelseyville head coach KC White said. “They deserved the W more than we did. I always try to find the positive in a game, but it’s difficult for this particular game.”
One bright spot was the play off the bench of Manny Arias.
“When I subbed him in about halfway through the first half, he brought a physicality that was much needed,” White said. “I’m happy to see his improvement over the years.”
White also praised the effort of Jose Sanchez.
“Jose is a senior playing soccer for the first time,” White said. “He played well, and he will only improve as the season progresses.”
The Knights (0-1-1) started strong before faltering.
“I thought we played well the first 25 minutes of the game, but then our own mistakes caught up with us,” White said. “We aren’t at full strength right now, but that’s no excuse. I feel confident in the group that I have that we can compete in every game. However, there are things that we aren’t doing that we need to do to improve our game. There’s potential there. Luckily it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet, so there’s a lot of time to make improvements.”
Kelseyville returns to action Dec. 3 against Pierce in Arbuckle. The varsity girls play at 3 p.m. and the boys follow at 5 p.m.
“We will be road warriors this season due to our field being under construction,” White said.
Junior varsity
Kelseyville’s green JV squad allowed two goals in each half of its season opener.
“On the surface it would appear that this decision was a rough one for us, but considering this was the first ever soccer game for a lot of my students, I was happy with the effort,” White said. “We made three costly mistakes tonight, which resulted in three of the four goals for the other team. A couple of those errors were because of inexperience.”
Though trailing 2-0 at halftime, the Knights came out with a lot of fight in the second half, according to White.
“We came out really strong in the second half and could have easily pulled level had the ball bounced our way,” White said. “I was extremely impressed with the play of Jose Juarez and Jake Smart tonight. Jose is a junior. He has some experience playing soccer, but it was clear he was the best player on the field tonight. Jake is a freshman. I put him in multiple positions tonight and he played extremely well at every single one. That bodes well for his future at KHS.”
White said he is trying to schedule more games for the JV team this season, but their next scheduled game isn’t until Jan. 9 at St. Helena.
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