HUNTINGTON BEACH – Los Alamitos boys soccer coach Donovan Martinez has criticized his players for sitting back and waiting to make their move on a counterattack.
That tentativeness didn’t work too well against Edison on Friday night, and the Griffins found themselves trailing by a goal in the 53rd minute. That’s when the Griffins changed their formation to push more players up the field.
Judging by what happened after that, the Griffins shouldn’t have waited so long to go on the offensive.
Julian Guerrero and Anthony Mejia scored within 10 minutes of each other in the second half to help lead the visiting Griffins to a 2-1 victory over the Chargers in a Sunset League match.
The triumph moved the fifth-ranked Griffins (18-2-5, 6-1-0) past the No. 4 Chargers (12-4-3, 5-1-1) and to the top of the standings with three league games remaining.
“We feel good about where we are at, but we still have to play some really good teams,” Martinez said.
Fountain Valley is one of the Griffins’ remaining opponents, and the Barons, who beat Newport Harbor, 5-0, on Friday, are tied with the Chargers for second, two points behind Los Al.
“But the thing that we like now,” Martinez said, “is that we control our own destiny. It is in our hands, we don’t have to rely on help from other people.”
But 13 minutes into the second half, it looked as if Edison was about to tighten its grip on first place. Sam Kemper curled a 25-yard shot inside the near post and past Alec Lazar as he stretched out to try to make the save for Los Al.
“They were smart. They were organized,” Edison coach Charlie Breneman said. “They frustrated us defensively, and we didn’t do enough to unbalance them to really bother them.
“Now, we need help from some other teams.”
Contact the writer: ddottore@ocregister.com
