Sometimes the game goes not to the most skilled, but to the most patient.
Like a tiger waiting in the tall grass for his chance, the soccer match between the Orcas Vikings and the Lopez Lobos on Saturday on the Orcas field proved this. With some cautious approaches and strategizing, the Lobos managed to win 1-0 in the second half with a coordinated forward drive. Jamie Cummings started off the winning score by controlling the ball with a pass to Charlie O’Neill, who then got off a quick lateral kick to Sam Ferguson. Ferguson saw his opening and he finished off the scoring drive with a well-placed kick past the corner goal-post as the Orcas goalie leapt and missed the score.
“We’ve been doing nothing but working on defense,” Melanie Weber, coach for the co-ed Lobos soccer team, said. “Our first option is not to clear the ball. Instead of kicking it away, we’ve worked on controlling the ball in order to start an offensive push. My offense literally could not beat our defense with this kind of set up in practices this week.”
The Lobos’ primary philosophy this year is to get the defense to work as a unit.
Solomon Bill was a strong defender for the Lobos, beating the Orcas offense to the ball many times on the outside and feeding it back into the center for Lopez. But this doesn’t mean that Orcas never got through. Arlen Coiley, goalie for the Lobos, made dozens of sacrificial leaps and twists to save the Lobos from being scored on by the aggressive Orcas Vikings.
“We had just come off a great game with Grace Academy on Friday afternoon, beating them 2-0,” coach for the Orcas Vikings, Matt Stolmeier, said. “It was a great way to start off the season. We had some outstanding pushes by our strikers Fernando Arvola and Chase Drake.”
Lopez only had two shots on goal and the Vikings had ten, but it only takes one shot to score.
“We had great opportunities that just didn’t end in a shot,” Stolmeier said.
The Lopez Lobos play again on Friday Sept. 25 against Mt. Vernon Christian and the Orcas Vikings play on Tuesday Sept. 29 against North Sound Christian at 2:45 p.m. on Orcas.
