by RAFAEL MARQUEZ
The Hays Rebels boys soccer team shut out the La Grange Leopards Friday with a 5-0 win. From the moment the opening whistle blew, the game was completely dominated by the Hays Rebels.
Omar Rangel opened the scoreboard early for the Rebels with a goal barely two and a half minutes into the game. Four and a half minutes later, Rangel would score again, making the score 2-0, only seven minutes into the game.
La Grange suffered from some very sloppy passing in the opening half. They never quite seemed to get their offense organized enough to mount an offensive drive against Hays.
It would not be until there were less than 17 minutes left in the first half that La Grange’s Marco Cerda would be able to take a shot at the Hays goal post. Cerda’s shot went wide and missed the far end of the goal. That was La Grange’s only shot at goal in the first half.
Hays’ Christian Chavez would score again with 4:22 left in the first half making the score 3 goals to 0. La Grange would try to score once more before the end of the half, but they were called offsides and their offensive effort was stymied by the half time whistle.
At the start of the second half, it was more Hays. The Rebels were taking shot after shot at the Leopard goal post, with some shots going wide and others being stopped by Abdiel Marroquin the Leopard goalkeeper.
The Rebel’s Kevin Mendoza would make the next Rebel score at the 29:34 mark making the score 4-0. La Grange did not give up at all. They kept trying to put offense together but they were just not able to make something happen against Hays, even from a free kick.
At the end of the game, La Grange coach Mark Maxey said his team needed to “start faster and have more anticipation and play with more energy from the beginning.” He stated that Hays comes out strong from the beginning and La Grange needed to match their intensity.
The Leopards did manage to put one in the net, but the goal was called back because of a foul.
The last official score of the game would come at the feet of Christian Varela with 6:42 left in the game. The final score was Hays Rebels 5, La Grange Leopards 0.
Hays High head coach Jason Burnett said that the team still “has a lot of catching up to do” since they are only playing at about 85% due to both injuries suffered during non district play and illnesses on the team.
