Ahead of themselves
By Michael Ashford
Originally published 01:34 p.m., October 2, 2007
Updated 01:34 p.m., October 2, 2007
The question begged asking, and Emporia High soccer coach Steve Pearson gave an honest answer.
After the EHS boys defeated Junction City, 4-0, Monday night in a somewhat lackluster performance, were the Spartans focused more on today’s tilt with No. 2-ranked Washburn Rural?
“Duh,” Pearson said. “We took them (Junction City) way too lightly. Everybody kept thinking about tomorrow and nobody was thinking about today.”
Emporia High’s lack of focus was most apparent in the first half, as the Spartans took a whopping 24 shots — including 10 shots on goal — but could only manage to find the net once when Juan Carlos Rangel turned and fired a shot home off a deflection from Brian Dorsey that made it 1-0 Emporia with 16 minutes left in the half.
While the Spartans (8-2, 4-2 Centennial League) basically camped out on Junction City’s side of the field in the first half, they had little to show for it and often took ill-advised shots.
“They would run up and go, ‘Oh, there’s a shot. I’ll take it,’ whether it was a good shot or not,” Pearson said. “They would just run up and kick it.”
After some lineup changes to start the second half, Emporia played much better, getting a trio of scores spread out over the final 40 minutes to easily dispatch of the Blue Jays.
“We just started getting on a roll and connecting,” Dorsey said. “Things just started working.”
Things certainly clicked for Emporia on its first score of the second half.
In the 54th minute, Emporia’s Carlos Antonio smacked a cross-field pass from the left side of the goal to the right, where Dorsey was waiting uncovered. Dorsey got his head on the ball for the easy tap-in to make it 2-0, despite a few Junction City complaints that he was offsides.
“As soon as I saw it (the ball), I just jumped, and I knew it was going in. I just had to tap it in,” Dorsey said. “I wasn’t offsides.”
Two minutes later, a foul by a Junction City player in front of the net gave Emporia a penalty kick, which Antonio cashed in on with a rolling smash into the left corner of the net to make it 3-0.
Emporia capped its scoring in the final minute when Alex Guevara scored on an assist from Brian Tabares.
In all, Emporia had 21 shots on goal to Junction City’s four.
Dorsey said that kind of offensive attack is what the Spartans will need when they face a big, physical Rural team at 6:30 tonight in Topeka.
“We just have to keep taking shot after shot and see what happens,” Dorsey said. “Hopefully we can come away with win.”
Emporia 4, Junction City 0
Monday at TRYSA
J.C. 0 0 — 0
Emporia 1 3 — 4
Shots on goal — J.C. 4, Emporia 21. Saves — J.C.: David Cha 17, Emporia: Spencer Anderson 4. Direct kicks — J.C. 16, Emporia 19. Corner kicks — J.C. 1, Emporia 5. Fouls — J.C. 19, Emporia 16. Yellow cards — J.C.: Dalton Wagenblast, Cody Waterman, Thomas Miskevich; Emporia: Adrian Trujillo, Aaron Aleman, Matt Fry.