Boys’ Soccer defeats Inglewood 8-2

In boys' soccer's first league game on Jan. 15, Samo beat Inglewood 8-2, giving the team strong momentum for the rest of the season.After a few missed shots by forward Christian Palomares ('15), he was able to shoot the ball into the corner of the net.As Samo players maintained the ball on the offensive side, Inglewood players became anxious. Forward Andres Carreno ('14) was about to sh0ot when Inglewood’s goal keeper came out of the goal and intentionally tripped Carreno. Inglewood’s goalie received a red card and was immediately substituted after this play.With a penalty kick, Carreno scored with an easy touch into the goal.Forward Jesse De Dios ('14), with an assist from midfielder Omar Sanchez, scored, bringing the score to 3-0.Although the team was making a lot of goals the team kept finding themselves offsides. At one point four of Samo’s players were marked offsides.Forward Giancarlo Canas ('15) crossed to forward Alex Sciupac ('14) who scored with an easy touch into the side of the goal.Another pair who scored by working together were Palomares and Javier Lopez ('14).Midfielder Eric Shanley ('16) also scored during the second half making the score 7-0.As Canas moved up the field he made a clear shot to the side of the goal. The amount of goals the team made secured their win but Inglewood certainly did not want to leave with a score of 8-0.Inglewood had a corner kick and one of their players was able to score. Inglewood second goal was a rebound that the goalie was unable to grab.According to Head Coach Serafin Rodriguez, the team has been working on scoring and this game showed that their work payed off.“We’ve been working a lot on finishing because that was one of our issues,” Rodriguez said. “In every single game we played we were creating a lot of opportunities but we missed too many open shots.”Serafin said that the coaches’ strategy is to substitute a lot during the games to keep the players fresh and to not tire them out as much.“We never let them get the rhythm because we subbing so much because of the heat,” Rodriguez said. “As coaches we figured that we were going to win today and we have to start thinking that on Friday were going to play another game and we want to keep them as fresh as possible.”Accoding to Carreno, the team’s main priority was to score as much as possible because it was their first league game.“Today we worked as a team and we were able to move the ball a lot more which definitely helped the flow of the game,” Carreno said. “We gave it our all because we know how important our first game was.”