Storm Victory Wasn’t Enough
Santa Clarita Storm earned a hard fought 4-2 victory over Deportivo Coras U.S.A. U23 (DCU) on Sunday, April 19 at Golden Valley High School. The Storm needed at least four goals if they wanted to keep their United Premier Soccer League (UPSL) Admiral Cup hopes alive having suffered a 1-4 lose in the first leg. The Storm would need to keep a clean sheet or risk needing at least five goals to advance.
The dream never materialized as the Storm’s Cup dreams began to crash in the 17th minute when DCU’s Tony Trevino dribbled through their backline splitting the defenders scoring leaving the Storm faced with a nightmare ahead if they could not produce a miracle.
“I want to see us start the game with as much heart as we finished, we shouldn’t have to wait a half to warm up, if we start with that intensity it would not have been close,” said Storm defender Scott Landon. “It’s a building experience every game we need to work to improve and in the few weeks we start our regular season and that’s what matters.”
In the 29th DCU began to play untidy defense giving up a penalty kick to the Storm on a hand ball in the box. Brett Croft converted the penalty kick when the keeper could not reach the low ball tying the game.
DCU’s defensive troubles began to mount with the half nearing an end in the 45th minute they surrendered another penalty in the box taking down a Storm player. Croft again made easy work of the keeper fooling him into diving the wrong way to give the Storm a 2-1 lead they would not surrender.
“It was tough we were battling but we missed a couple chances, I could not get anything to go my way then I dropped to the middle,” said Storm midfielder Andrew Tusaazemajja. “We fought hard, at the end we were chasing the game we knew we had to go for it, their where a lot of positives some being our intensity our effort how we were down making the came back but overall a good performance.”
After halftime the Storm quickly scored a third goal from Zach Klindworth who used fancy footwork and a strong leg in firing the ball along the ground from just outside the box as it zoomed past defenders and the keeper to reach the back of the net.
“The guys played a good game today they played hard unfortunately the first half did not play out the way we were looking for if they played the second half as they did the first we would have earned the result needed,” said Storm head coach Oscar Moreno in his post game press conference. “They the other team played good but we did not play aggressive and play with the passion to start we were to calm allowing the other team to get too many touches.”
The Admiral Cup chase was over for the Storm when they lost their defense way as DCU’s Gilbert Castrejon scored in the 60th taking advantage of a defensive mix-up in the Storm’s penalty box to get a goal.
With away goals having more value and DCU having two to the Storm’s one the chase was on with the Storm now needing three more goals to advance. Coach Moreno changed his lineup to get the team fresh legs finding the spark his men desperately needed yet too late.
After getting a bunch of opportunities the Storm failed to convert they managed just one more goal when Landon let go a rocket that flew from eighteen yards out that left the DCU keep motionless. Falling short losing their bid to hoist the Admiral Cup, the Storm will regroup with their UPSL regular season kicking off next month.
“We brought a lot of bench players for this game.” Said DCU coach Nelson Moreira. “We did well, we tried to control the game and keep the score we had (from the first leg). We look forward to pursuing a lot of goals this season.”
Article © 2015 Malik Basurto, Photo Credit: Paul Sunde
