Santa Ana Valley’s first pass of the boys soccer season resulted in a goal. But it wasn’t the Falcons who scored it.
A mistake while Valley passed its opening kick off to its sweeper gave Los Alamitos possession, and Ian Roche put the host Griffins in front just 28 seconds into Thursday’s Aliso Cup pool play match.
“I think they (the players) did a pretty good job of not allowing it to affect them,” Santa Ana Valley coach Jose Sanchez said. “I thought we played well after that.”
And with four minutes to go in the first half Heriberto Castelan curled the equalizer into the upper right corner of the goal for the Falcons as Valley and Los Alamitos played to a 1-1 tie.
Had it not been for a clutch second-half save by Alfredo Gonzalez, Roche would have had his second goal. It happened when the Falcons were a man down after Victor Torres was sent off after getting his second yellow card in the 61st minute. Roche was running toward the right side of the net while Gonzalez was leaning the opposite way, but he recovered.
“Give credit to the keeper. You are not going to get a better opportunity than that,” Los Alamitos coach Don Martinez said.
Contact the writer: ddottore@ocregister.com
