This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Sports

Barons' Soccer Team Falls Short of Wrapping up League Title

Fountain Valley loses for the third time this season to Marina, 2-0, as the Vikings take a one-point lead with one game remaining in the Sunset League title race.

Fountain Valley’s boys soccer team had an opportunity to wrap-up the Sunset League title at home Friday afternoon with a victory over second-place Marina.

Instead, the Barons lost the game, lost their 2-point lead and, with only one game remaining and one point down, may have lost their chance for the league title.

Marina’s Josue Medina scored twice, at the 28-minute mark and the 78-minute mark, to lead the Vikings to a 2-0 victory over the Barons. It was Fountain Valley’s third loss of the season to Marina. The other two games were 1-0 and 2-1.

Find out what's happening in Fountain Valleywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“They definitely have our number,” said Jason Smith, the Barons 16-year head coach. “For whatever reason, we don’t match up well with them. They were just better than us. They work really hard defensively.”

For the Vikings (16-2-5, 6-1-2), ranked No. 6 in Orange County, it was their 17th shutout of the season behind senior goalkeeper David Elias, who has surrendered only seven goals in 23 games this season. The Barons (15-5-3, 6-2-1), ranked No. 9 in the county, have 13 shutouts and allowed 16 goals behind goalies Joseph Loranger and Ryan Brown.  

Find out what's happening in Fountain Valleywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The Barons wrap up the regular season Wednesday at Los Alamitos (5 p.m.). The Vikings face Edison in their finale.

The winning goal by Marina came late in the first half on a miscue by the Barons defense. Loranger, the Barons’ first-half goalie, collided with one of his defenders at the 18 and the ball trickled behind him. Medina kept going and easily tapped a shot into the empty net to give the Vikings a 1-0 halftime lead.

“It was kind of a mix-up and they took advantage of it,” Smith said. “They are an opportunistic team and they defend well. They wait for teams to make mistakes and that was one of them.”

Jose Garcia and Joseph Soliman both had opportunities to tie the match for the Barons, but were smothered each time by Elias and failed to get off good shots.

“We had a couple chances but their goalie came up big for them,” lamented Smith.

 

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?