By Karen Phan
This afternoon, boys’ varsity soccer faced off against Santa Ana High School’s highly regarded soccer team and, despite their defense’s stellar performance, suffered a narrow 1-2 loss to the Saints.
“It was a hard-fought, equally-matched game,” sophomore Chris Ouellette said. “It came down to the last couple minutes, but I felt we played a really strong game.”
Santa Ana’s aggression forced Fountain Valley to stay on their toes from the beginning. Both teams battled for possession, but the Saints continued to win 50/50 tackles, evidently setting the tempo for the rest of the game.
Junior Sebastian Rus and senior Dakota Whitsel made some offensive plays ten minutes into the game but Santa Ana rejected them. The Saints took a shot on goal a few minutes later and the Barons responded with senior Tyler Le making a breakaway.
Santa Ana picked up the pace and strengthened their offense, coming close to penetrating Fountain Valley’s defense before the ball was cleared out of the Barons’ territory. Senior Will Oakes made a breakaway and crossed the ball to Rus in the 20th minute, but Santa Ana regained control of the ball and did not allow the Barons to make any more offensive plays.
The Saints pressured the Barons for over ten minutes before shooting the ball into the top of Fountain Valley’s net in the 34th minute to score the first goal of the game. Santa Ana’s offense did not relent and Fountain Valley remained on the defensive for the rest of the half.
“In the first half, we played really good defense and made it hard for them to break us down,” senior co-captain Connor Wright said.
Fountain Valley and Santa Ana opened the second half with high intensity. Senior co-captain Devon Verde generated some offensive pressure for the Barons before losing the ball, and the Saints scored a second goal in the 44th minute.
“[We] got unlucky when our defense switched off for a second and [Santa Ana] was able to capitalize,” Wright said.
Santa Ana dominated the game following their goal as they did in the first half, however, Fountain Valley had more opportunities to play offensively. After a defensive clear, the Barons moved the ball up the field with Oullette making a clean drive into the Saint’s net to score in the 50th minute.
“In the second half, we were able to get more confidence and started to cause [Santa Ana] a lot more problems by creating chances [to score],” Wright said. “But we were unlucky not to score again with the chances we created.”
Rus led the Barons’ offense minutes after Ouellette’s goal, and the game shifted into a stalemate as Fountain Valley played with more aggression. In the 58th minute, Rus took a penalty kick but missed the net, and the Saints were awarded a corner kick two minutes later.
Such back-and-forth action became more intense as the game came to a close with the ball traveling from one side of the turf to the other within seconds. Whitsel took a shot on goal in the 64th minute and Rus during stoppage time but both missed the net, and the game ended with the Barons losing 1-2.
“It was only our second game of the season. We are still developing our chemistry and experimenting with different, effective tactics,” Rus said. “I am personally excited to see how much we can improve as a team and how we can compete at the highest level.”
Come support the Barons this Friday at JSerra Catholic High School at 6:30 p.m or next Monday as they host Segerstrom High School at 3 p.m.
“I feel like it can only go better from here,” Ouellette said. “We are all brothers wanting to win CIF, and our team is willing to work hard to reach our goal.”
A previous version of this article misspelled Chris Ouellette’s name and stated he was a junior.
