Gavilan soccer suffers first loss

Gavilan men’s soccer team suffered its first loss of the young season, falling 5-0 to Modesto College Tuesday.
The Rams went down by three goals midway through the first half and never could recover.
Modesto forward Francisco Chavez became a one-man wrecking crew against Gavilan, scoring four goals to send the Rams to 2-1 overall.
“We were able to see some of our weaknesses and that’s good. Now that our weaknesses have been revealed, we can start to fix them,” said Gavilan coach Justin Johnson.
Chavez scored back-to-back goals in the 35^th and 36^th minutes off of Gavilan turnovers. He scored two more times in the second half before he was pulled late in the game.
The Rams and the Pirates battled for the first 19 minutes as Gavilan keeper Carlos Jimenez kept attacks from turning into goals.
The Pirates, however, broke through in the 20^th minute off a free kick that bounced off the head of Luis Salvatierra to Alex Bettencourt who headed the ball into the net.
Modesto controlled much of the action, taking 15 shots, with eight on goal.
Jimenez turned away five of them, including three that came at point blank range one right after the other.
He turned away four more in the second half.
“He made some huge saves for us. He was the MVP of the back line today,” Johnson said.
Chavez put the Pirates up 4-0 off a penalty kick in the 67^th minute and then 5-0 off a shot in the 74^th minute.
Johnson said he will start to break down film and work on improving the defense.
He added that the team is still made up of young men and he wants to work on managing emotions and focus on the positives.
Johnson said the team has 17 games left and this was just one game.
Gavilan will hit the practice field the next two days before it travels to Lemoore to take on West Hills College on Friday. That will kick off a five-game road trip that will extend into October.