Dunlop’s goal in 68th minute makes Mounties a winner
Posted on Wednesday, March 26, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/bcdr/Sports/60087/
ROGERS — Unlike their last 7 AWest Conference soccer match against Fort Smith Southside, there was no deer in the headlights look for the Rogers Mountaineers on Tuesday.
The Mounties matched Van Buren’s intensity and toughness the whole way in a 3-2 win against the Pointers at Gates Stadium.
Rogers ( 10-1-1, 1-1 ) evened its record in the conference play and has already matched its win total from last year when the Mounties went 10-7-2.
After a scoreless first half that saw 20 combined shots from both teams, Rogers came out with a pair of second-half goals only to watch Van Buren tie it up in the 64 th minute.
Rogers sophomore forward Spencer Dunlop scored the game-winner in the 68 th minute when he deposited the rebound of a Daniel Saldana miss that bounced off Van Buren goalkeeper Danny Munguia.
“ I just love the way the guys didn’t quit, ” Rogers coach Steve Peck said. “ When (Van Buren ) tied it up, we didn’t lay down. We didn’t hang our head. We played the way we needed to play and it worked out for us in the end. ”
It was quite a different match than the March 11 match against Fort Smith Southside at Gates Stadium. The Rebels jumped on Rogers early and held on for a 4-2 win.
Van Buren came out firing Tuesday, but Rogers goalkeeper Pedro Vargas made three crucial saves in the first half that prevented the Pointers from scoring. Vargas finished with six saves.
“ That’s probably the best game I’ve seen out of Pedro, ” Peck said. “ Even on the corners and coming out and punching the ball out on set pieces, he did a good job.
“ To be 1-1 in the conference at this point in time is good, especially with the two teams we’ve already played. I’m very pleased. ”
Rogers took a 1-0 lead in the 45 th minute when Juan Orrala scored in the right corner on an assist from Marvin Carpio.
Leon Mercurius made it 2-0 when he scored after dribbling around Munguia in the 49 th minute.
The Mounties held their two goal lead until the 58 th minute when Alex Rodriguez scored the first of two goals on the night for the Pointers (8-2, 1-2 ). His second goal came with 17: 54 remaining in the match on a missle shot that Vargas had no chance on. The Mounties responded like they had never lost the momentum. Dunlop’s goal — his 16 th on the season — gave the Mounties the 3-2 lead and Van Buren had to play a player short for the last 5 minutes. Dunlop was taken down from behind on a breakaway by Van Buren’s William Trejo, who was given a red card and ejected from the match. Van Buren coach Nathan Almond praised his team’s comeback after falling behind but said the Pointers used up all their energy doing that.
“ That’s a hard hole to dig out of, ” Almond said. “ We came back to tie it up, but it just took a little too much energy and too much effort to try to put it over the top. ” Lady Mounties 5, Lady Pointers 0
The Lady Mounties won their seventh straight match but the team didn’t always look good doing it according to coach Chris Leshinski.
Rogers (9-2, 2-0 in 7 A-West ) had a gameplan of working on headers and crosses, Leshinski said, but the Lady Mounties didn’t do a good job on either.
“ We were trying to work on heading and crosses, ” Leshinski said. “ We didn’t do any of it and the score kind of reflects that. At the same time, I don’t think we played a very good game. We’ve got to play better. ”
On the other hand, Leshinski was impressed with Van Buren (2-5-1, 0-3 ), which only won one match last season.
“ They’re getting better, ” Leshinski said. “ They’re still a couple of years away. They’ve got to work on possession a little bit better. They have some decent speed and they had an opportunity at the end where we kinda got relaxed. ” Rogers outshot Van Buren 23-1, but the Lady Pointers had a shot to score late that the Rogers’ defense turned away. The Lady Pointers held Rogers to only three first half goals and the score remained 3-0 until late in the match when Rogers scored a pair of goals in the final six minutes. “ Coming into the game we prepared very defensively, ” Van Buren coach Ann Zulch said. “ We knew Rogers had some great forwards that can score. They can score from the midfield also, so we decided we were going to play a very defensive game. ”
Hannah Kent, Marina Fountain and Adrian Rogers scored first half goals for the Lady Mounties while Maura McDowell and Megan Dougherty scored second half goals.
Dougherty, a Furman signee, was playing her first match in a month because of a leg injury.