It
’s never an easy trip to Salinas to play any of the high school
sports teams there, no matter how talented they are, especially
when it’s the first trip of the young season.
It’s never an easy trip to Salinas to play any of the high school sports teams there, no matter how talented they are, especially when it’s the first trip of the young season.
Live Oak High’s boys and girls soccer teams both knew that going into this week’s Tri-County Athletic League match-ups at North Salinas and Salinas, resp-ectively.
But both emerged victorious in their matches, with the boys winning a thriller 3-2 over the Vikings and the girls upping their record to a perfect 3-0 in league with a 2-0 win over the Cowboys.
In the boys victory on Wednesday, Acorn coach Tony Goble was so incensed by the officials’ seeming indiff-erence to the rough-and-tumble nature of play that he vowed to report it to the league office.
“It was really ugly,” Goble said. “It was a very poorly officiated game, very one-sided. It got very, very physical. Typically that happens in Salinas but this was really bad. In all my years (at Live Oak) I’ve never complained about the officiating but I have to call this one in, even in a win.”
Goble said things got so bad that Acorn sophomore Garrett Frechette got cleated behind the action and had to leave the game. Goble said the injury could be a fracture and could keep Frechette out for weeks.
The rough play overshadowed an inspired comeback on the road for the Live Oak boys, who Goble admitted were in a must-win situation after tying an average Hollister-San Benito team in its league opener on last week.
With league rival Gilroy winning its first two league games, another tie or a loss would have left Live Oak scrambling.
With the pressure on, the Acorns found themselves down 2-1 at halftime against the Vikings.
And, the only reason Live oak, which had struggled to score goals all year, had a goal at all in the first half was that a North Salinas defender had knocked in an Anthony Razouk cross.
But Live Oak turned it around in the second half. Razouk got the equalizer on an assist by Trevor Kovacek, then returned the favor by setting up Kovacek for the winning goal.
“We lost one of our best players (Frechette) and still came back to win,” Goble said. “We rose to the occasion and that’s great. To get into the playoffs, we have to beat everyone.”
Live Oak improved to 1-0-1 in league and 8-5-1 overall. North Salinas dropped to 1-1 in league.
The Acorns are scheduled to host Salinas today at 3:30 p.m.
Meanwhile, the Live Oak girls soccer team won at Salinas despite the absence of Coach Tony Vasquez, who was serving a one-game suspension after receiving a red card during the Acorns’ victory on Monday.
Assistant coach Mark Pimental, filling in for Vasquez, said Salinas showed a lot of improve-ment from last season and gave the Acorns a good game.
Live Oak took a 1-0 lead in the first half on a goal by Catriona Adam, assisted by Allison Mutz.
The Acorns added to their lead in the second half on a goal by Janae Pimental, again assisted by Mutz.
Live Oak improved to 3-0 in league and 7-3-3 overall with the win.
The Acorn girls are scheduled to play Leland in a non-conference scrim-mage on Monday, then continue their league schedule by hosting Notre Dame on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m.
