By GANNON HANEVOLD
Moapa Valley Progress
Last week, the Moapa Valley High School boys soccer team played its second and third games of the season. These games were also the final two games of the preseason. While the team showed improvement in many ways, these games proved that the Pirates still have work to be done.
The first game of the week came at home against Mojave. The Pirates didn’t play as well as they’d hoped. Trailing 2-0 at half, the Pirates needed a response. They scored in the second half on a Bryan Robles goal, set up by an assist from Isaah Fairchild. However, the Rattlers scored a second half goal of their own courtesy of a penalty shot. The Pirates would fall by a score of 3-1.
“None of the goals they scored were sensational or remarkable or impossible to stop,” Moapa Valley head coach Jared Bushman said of his team’s defensive effort. “We should have been able to stop them.”
Meanwhile the offense didn’t play with enough efficiency to win, Bushman said. “We had a lot of opportunities, but we didn’t put them in the back of the net,” he said. “The whole game, we were constantly attacking.”
While much of the game is played on the field, soccer is a mental game as well, Bushman pointed out. “I think it was a confidence thing,” he said. “A lot of the boys are still wondering how good we are, and afterwards they knew they definitely could have beat that team.”
In the second game of the week, the Pirates took on the Miners of Sunrise Mountain, one of the better teams in Southern Nevada. It was the Miners that scored first in the game, but the Pirates responded with a score of their own. Putting the ball in the net for Moapa Valley would be Bryan Robles once again. This time the assist came from Gabriel Hernandez.
After another Miners goal towards the end of the half, it seemed as if the Pirates were really competing and had a shot at sticking with one of the elite teams in the state. But in the second half, Moapa saw a whole different animal take the field for Sunrise Mountain. The Miners emerged to score six goals in the second half and defeated the Pirates 8-1.
“When you play against a talented team and score, there’s a level of intensity that changes,” Bushman said. “We didn’t match their intensity after our goal. In the second half, Sunrise figured out what we were doing wrong. Sunrise Mountain played to another level in the second half.”
Looking forward into the divisional games fast approaching, the Pirates are hoping to build on the positives of their performance and improve on what wasn’t working. Coach Bushman specified what he hopes to see the Pirates working towards.
“We’re a better offensive team than we’ve been in the past,” he said. “The question is whether or not the eleven guys on the field are going to do what it takes to stop (the other team) from scoring. We’re hoping to string together some passes so we can keep possession of the ball and so the other team can’t attack.”
With the preseason wrapping up and league games coming soon, the Pirates hope to be prepared to take on some tough opponents and continue developing their skills as the regular season gets underway.
