By Kyle Lehnick
The Hays Rebel boys soccer team took a 4-0 loss at home Tuesday against the Del Valle Cardinals.
Del Valle didn’t waste time in notching its first goal of the match. The Cardinals scored their first goal within the first five minutes of play.
Rebel head coach Jason Burnett said the Cardinals had “speed up front” and that the team got caught off-guard with an attacker “breaking free on the outside.”
“That’s how the first goal happened. Sometimes you don’t know what their speed is in the first 10 minutes of the game,” Burnett said. “Our defenders were caught out of position on that one and had to play catch-up and just didn’t have the wheels to get there.”
The Cardinals tagged ten shots on goal in the first half compared to the Rebels’ two. Del Valle found the net with 7:50 left in the first half and seemed to ease off the gas with a safe lead.
Burnett said focusing on playing hard for the full 40 minute half was the goal.
“We set a couple of team goals and that’s what we’re shooting for, not necessarily points on the board but are we achieving what we want to achieve,” Burnett said. “I thought in the second half we met more of those goals that we set for today than we did in the first.”
Hays picked up its defensive pressure in the second half and only allowed a goal via an impressive one-timer from 90 feet out with 21 minutes remaining. The Cardinals did find the net one more time with 10:18 left, where the score settled.
Despite some of the struggles on the soccer pitch, primarily putting goals on the scoreboard, Burnett said there are things the team is working on. Trying to get the team to “pass with purpose” and not just “knock the ball” is one aspect.
“We’re trying to get numbers on the ball and play aggressively. Stepping out of that shelf of being the nice guy--they’re a great group of kids but stepping that part of the game up is what we were looking for tonight,” Burnett said. “And we saw a lot more of that especially with our set pieces both offensively and defensively.”
Burnett said the Rebels were getting progressively better and that they’re staring to work more as a team.
“That’s what we’ve talked about from the beginning is that we don’t have a team of individuals, we’re going to be as good as we are together,” Burnett said.
Coming up
Hays next match will be on the east side of I-35 at Lehman High School on Friday night. Kickoff scheduled for 7:30 p.m.
