Lobos’ Edwin Baltran (10) dribbles past an Anderson defender during Friday’s game.
Playing the role of spoiler Friday, the Lehman Lobos boys soccer team placed the Anderson Trojans’ playoff hopes in jeopardy following a 1-1 tie at Lobo Field.
Lehman put together a solid performance against a Trojans team that is still fighting for a playoff spot with only a few regular-season games remaining.
Both scores came in the opening half of play with Anderson jumping on the board first within ten minutes on the clock on a corner kick that found its way into the net on the back post. But Lehman answered back at the 15-minute mark with a score by senior Erick Marin, who cleaned up a free-kick rebound off the Trojans goalkeeper.
“We’ve been working on free kicks, and the big thing we’ve been working on is to go the ball, crash it and then someone follow behind that,” Lehman head coach Rene Medina said. “It worked out for us, so it's good to see training come into the game and work out.”
Despite an offensive surge by the Trojans in the second half, the Lobo defense held strong by not allowing an Anderson goal the rest of the way. Anderson rattled off eight total shots in the contest, four of those on goal.
For Medina, the Lobos met their goal of improving their game-to-game shot ratio.
Lehman outshot Anderson 16-12 in the game, including a 10-7 on-goal ratio.
“That's something we’ve been really keeping count of is our shot-ratio,” said Medina. “You know what team is getting more shots. We did really good in the first half, second half we didn’t do as good on that. That's something we need to put a full game together.”
Lehman got solid performances from its backline defense and two goalkeepers Marshal DuKett and Jose Flores. DuKett and Flores split time in the goal with each playing one half, and they combined for 10 total saves.
“Both goalies were solid in there,” Medina said. “We’ve been big on them communicating with their backline, and the defense getting organized. The attack telling them what to do, the information and instructions. They did that.”
In addition to the improvement in defense and shot-ratio, Medina was impressed by the Lobos’ mid-field transition against the Trojans. Medina said he thought freshman midfielder Adrian Perez had a great game controlling the transition, especially late in the second half.
“We’ve been on them about mid-field transition a lot, like who’s going to win that mid-field battle,” Medina said. “When possession and transitions are there in the mid-field, when the possession changes what happens? Are we going to win it back and get into our attacking third, or are they going to win it back and get into our defensive third. So we did a good job of that tonight.”
Despite a season’s worth of struggles, Lehman seeks to close out the 2020 campaign with a win Friday against Akins at 7:45 p.m.
“The season hasn’t gone the way would’ve liked,” Medina said. “We’ve just got to show that we have some character and some mental fortitude to finish out strong.”
