Second-half surge carries Carson to soccer win

It took quite a while for Carson High's boys soccer team to get started, but once it did Douglas didn't have a chance.

The Senators scored two second-half goals eight minutes apart en route to a 3-1 win over the visiting Tigers Wednesday night in a Sierra League soccer match.

On the field, Carson has a 9-1-2 record, while Douglas dropped to 2-8-2. However, following a bench-clearing melee against Hug, the game was declared a double forfeit, though Carson is protesting that decision.

Carson athletic director Bob Bateman said he found out about the decision to make both coaches sit out Wednesday matches on Tuesday afternoon.

That left the Carson team in the capable hands of Matt Morgan, who has a 2-0-1 record subbing for Masters this year. Masters missed one game because his wife delivered a baby, and then because he missed most of the practice time, had Morgan run the show against Galena.

"It was a great game," Morgan said. "It was a high intensity game the whole way."

That's typical of a Douglas-Carson game in most sports. Finesse gives way to body contact at every turn.

Though Carson had the edge in shots in the first 40 minutes, Douglas made several good runs that didn't result in any shots being attempted.

"We came out with a plan," Douglas coach Vince Brown said. "We wanted to hit them hard and early attacking wise. It worked for us. They scored at the end of the first half and that deflated us a bit. At the half I felt we were OK."

"They came out fast," Carson forward Jason Martinez said. "They started to play the ball faster."

The goal Brown was referring to came off a direct kick by Chris Espinoza, who put one in the penalty box area from near the right sideline about 25 yards out. Martinez appeared to get a foot on the ball, but was unable to get a clean shot off. Jon Guevara beat the Douglas goalie in the 38th minute for a 1-0 lead.

Three minutes into the second half, Martinez took a pass from Cristian Hernandez and scored to make it 2-0.

The third goal was textbook, as Sam Hutchinson sent a cross to Evan Sanchez who found the back of the net to make it 3-0 in the 51st minute.

"Evan had a great game," Morgan said.

Eleven minutes later, Eric Kleiner beat Gustavo Villagrana on the short side to make it 3-1.

"That was a nice goal by Eric," Brown said. "He's been playing mainly defense for us, but we've been playing him up front some."

Neither team threatened seriously in the final 18 minutes of the contest. Douglas had a 12-7 edge in shots.

Morgan said the key to the game was the wing play of Hernandez and Sanchez. He said that Carson attacked differently, which resulted in the two goals.