The Gauchos returned home and scored a 4-2 win against the Orange County
Blue Star. Herculez Gomez netted his second three-goal game for San Diego,
and the Gauchos maintained their second place standing in the D3 West.
After spending almost a month on the road, the Gauchos returned home for a
game against the PDL Orange County Blue Star. While they may not be in the
same D3 league, the results of the game will count in the standings for both
teams. So the Gauchos needed to get a good result to keep up their place in
the D3 western conference, just behind the Utah Blitzz. With the 4-2 win,
the Gauchos were able to earn a full 5 points in the standings, and kept
themselves on track.
The Gauchos played in their white jerseys with blue shorts, different from
the previous home games where they've worn all blue. The Orange County Blue
Star wore all black, so that I could write the names of three colors in this
sentence. One familiar face on Orange County's side was Tom Poltl, a
graduate of San Marcos high school and UCLA, who was drafted by the New
England Revolution and played for the A-League's Boston Bulldogs. Tom wore
the captain's armband for the Blue Stars, and figured as a prominent player
for them.
San Diego had most of the usual players, with Herculez Gomez and Jorge
Macias playing together at forward. Regular defenders Mark King and Bernardo
Lerma weren't in the lineup, having sustained injuries in the prior road
games. Kris Larsen, who has played forward before, lined up as one of the
defensive backs, and Oscar Romo had a chance to start in front of the home
crowd as well.
Orange County kicked off, and things were going San Diego's way. The Gauchos
had a couple of free kicks awarded early by referee Brian Elliott. Then in
the sixth minute Ralph Dartt made a long pass into the penalty area to
Herculez Gomez who put it away for the first goal of the evening. Once again
his jersey came off to reveal his now-well-known Superman "S" on his chest.
Just like that it was 1-0 Gauchos.
After the goal things started to get a little rough. Herculez was hacked
several times by Orange County, and even had to come off the field for a few
minutes to be attended to by the trainer. But as play went on, the Blue
Stars were able to string together a few passes, but were not able to make
any kind of serious threat in the offensive third of the field. Later,
Herculez regained his strength and had a very good chance on goal in the
35th minute that was saved by the keeper at close range.
But the keeper couldn't save Herculez' shot in the 41st minute. The ball had
been brought up the right side by Kris Larsen, who passed it into the
penalty area to Jorge Macias. Jorge dropped the ball back to Juan Nunez near
the right sideline, who had lots of time to lift the ball over the penalty
area to the far post to where Herculez was running. Herculez got the ball on
his head and then knocked it into the lower left corner of the goal, to
score his second of the night. The half ended with San Diego leading 2-0.
Orange County started the second half with a substitution, sending in Jason
Thompson for Brad Dunoway. Thompson provide a good spark for Orange County,
and was all over the field the rest of the way. San Diego earned two yellow
cards early in the second half. But Herculez was hacked again, and Orange
County got themselves a yellow card for it as well. Then Herculez continued
to make them pay for their mistakes by scoring his third goal of the night
in the 51st minute. With that third goal Herculez scored his second hat
trick of the season, and his 9th team goal, and got the USL "bonus" point in
the standings. And there was still a good 40 minutes of soccer left to play.
To their credit, Orange County didn't give up. They kept fighting and
attacking as best they could, and were finally rewarded when Tim Pierce took
a shot that was just over the head of Gauchos keeper Dan Sirota. It appeared
that Sirota got his fingers on it, but the ball rolled over him and made it
into the net to give Orange County their first goal.
But when it rains, it pours, and San Diego got another goal. This time it
was Anthony Medina who got on the scoresheet, by chipping the keeper from
about 35 yards out. Anthony saw the keeper high in the box and let one fly
from long range. The keeper, Zak Wells, lazily reached up for the ball, and
looked like he thought it wasn't going to go in, but the crowd cheered, and
when he turned around, all he could do was fish the ball out of the back of
the net.
After the fourth San Diego goal, Coach Bob Maruca emptied the bench and gave
some guys who hadn't yet played this year a little playing time. In the
middle of these substitutions, however, San Marcos native Tom Poltl earned
himself a red card for a particularly rough challenge in the 80th minute. In
the 82nd minute the Gauchos substituted their goalkeeper, and Omar Lizardo
came on for Sirota. Only three minutes later Lizardo came way off his line
for a ball that was bouncing towards the top corner of the penalty area, and
he ran into the Orange County player who was coming for the ball. The
referee thought it was a foul, and since it was in the penalty box, Orange
County was awarded a penalty kick. Trey Meek took the kick for the Blue
Star, and slotted it home to make it 4-2.
The game finally ended, and the Gauchos took all five points. The Gauchos
next play on Tuesday against the amateur champions Mexico S.C. from Selma,
CA in the first round of the U.S. Open Cup. The winner of that game will get
to go to beautiful Blaine Minnesota to play the A-League's Minnesota Thunder
in the second round of the Open Cup. Stay tuned!
Goals:
SD - '6 - Herculez Gomez (A. Ralph Dartt)
SD - '41 - Herculez Gomez (Juan Nunez)
SD - '52 - Herculez Gomez (Jorge Macias)
OC - '58 - Tim Pierce (Jason Thompson)
SD - '73 - Anthony Medina (Unassited)
OC - '85 - Trey Meek (PK)
Lineups:
San Diego: 1-Daniel Sirota ('82 99-Omar Lizardo), 4-Juan Nunez, 3-Kiko
Medina, 16-Beto Obregon ('76 7-Memo Medina), 13-Kris Larsen, 24-Anthony
Medina, 58-Oscar Romo ('79 14-Giovanni Guido), 18-Hiro Suzuki ('79 15-Amador
Flores), 11-Ralph Dartt, 10-Herculez Gomez, 9-Jorge Macias ('82 20-Denis
Vargas).
Orange County: 1-Zak Wells, 22-Brad Dunoway ('46 3-Jason Thompson), 4-Scott
Thompson, 19-Chadd Davis, 5-Sean Lockhart ('79 10-Mike Munoz), 11-Tim
Donnelly ('79 9-Jimmy Frazelle), 23-Nick Theslot ('67 Mark Vita), 8-Tom
Poltl ('80-Ejected), 20-Tyler Theslot ('36 14-Lawrence Smalls), 6-Trey Meek,
21-Tim Pierce
Referees: Elliott, Bryan; Sarkarhosseini, Hassan; Nguyen, Andrew H.;
Mariscal, Alejandro.
A. 352
