INLAND FIELDHOUSE

I covered the Riverside Arlington-Riverside King boys varsity soccer match for The Press-Enterprise on Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011, and came away thinking the Wolves were unlucky not win by five or six.

Instead, Todd Mapes’ charges had to settle for a 4-2 victory over Arlington on Wednesday despite owning a 12-to-6 shots on goal advantage. To wit, the Wolves (1-0-0) hits the cross bar twice in the first half, and forced Arlington’s sophomore keeper Alex Gonzales (6-foot-4, 175 pounds) to make several point-blank saves.

King players made sharper, more decisive run than their Arlington counterparts, and aside from a flash of skill from an Arlington forward, the Wolves controlled play and made the most of their chances.

Junior Nornubali Kalabolo is a revalation at right back for King. Big and physical, he did well when pressured and even scored the Wolves’ first goal of 2011-’12 when he headed in a corner from Josue Soto in the first 20 minutes.

Senior Christian Buysse showed a extremely high work rate for a forward, tracking back in defense while making every run off the ball to free up space for his teammate. He was rewarded for his efforts early in the second half when he headed in another corner from Soto.

Arlington’s Jason Canahai looked lost for large portions of the match, either playing to high a line or getting caught flat-footed on aerial challenges. His goal to get the Lions off the snide was a bang-bang thriller that quieted King’s grandstand long enough to send them into shock when Julian Martinez nailed an indirect free kick.

Ricardo Mendez, whom was mentioned prominantly in the article linked above, seems something  of a Johnny-on-the-spot. His first goal came off a rebound, and his second, well… you’ll just have to read about it.

Riverside King coach Todd Mapes:
“I thought we played very well in the first half. Unlucky on a few possible goals. I was surprised that we played so well so early on. Second half, I told the kids at halftime, ‘You keep your hard runs up front, keep shooting, (the goals are gonna come,’ and then they just started fallin’ for us. It should our inexperience, after we got our third goal we kinda relaxed a little bit and (Arlington) started taking over for about 10 minutes, and that’s what can happen. Arlington made a game out of it; two great shots put them back in the game. (Sophomore GK Randy Nguyen) said he was a little nervous but I thought he was solid, and that’s what I asked for, especially from a sophomore keeper. I thought he did well for his first game. We have height on set pieces and we have good servers. Combine those two and we should get some more goals this year on set pieces. I like what I see. I was pleasantly surprised after tonight. I’m excited. We’re gonna be in every game. We have enough talent to be in every game. Our intensity I was impressed with, and I think our speed up front is gonna cause some problems for some other teams.”

Arlington coach Kevin Watson:
“I’m pleased for the 20 minutes in the second half but we’ve got a lot of new guys. I’ve got a freshman starting, two freshmen playing, sophomores, juniors… this is a good learning tool for them. My speech was, ‘Guys, we’re gonna take our lumps. Let’s take’m early.’ Hopefully, we can advance ’cause the same thing’s happened to us the last two years. We take our lumps early and we usually get our stride in league and we go hard to CIF. We worked on set pieces for an hour at training. That’s all we worked on yesterday ’cause we know King. They’re physical. They’re great on set pieces, and sure enough, we gave them gifts on some set pieces. It’s unfortunate. We made a tactical decision. We dropped our striker, Ivan (Hernandez) back into the midfield, and he’s just a workhorse, and I think he spurred us into getting into the attack a little more. He made the difference. It was two great individual goals. You can’t take away from two great shots. (King) had four great shots, too. There was a lot of nice goals tonight. I’ve got a sophomore in goal, Alex Gonzalez, he’s been great. He’s the future of our program, and I figured ‘Why not take a shot now?’ Ivan (Hernandez)’s is great on the field, we need him on the field. I like the prospects that we have. I thought if I was going to give a player of the game it’d be Alex (Gonzalez). He was amazing. Ivan approached me in the off-season, said ‘Hey, coach, I can play the field,’ and I said ‘I know, I know.’ I had seen Alex during the club season and he just looked like he was getting better and better. He’s young, and we threw him into goal in our only friendly and he did awesome so we went with it. I like Ivan on the field and I like Alex in goal. I think it’s a good matchup. Ivan just gives us a presence. He’s constantly buzzing all the time, all around. Anywhere the ball is, Ivan’s with the ball. It’s why he’s such a good keeper. He’s got a knack for the game. He’s got great vision, and he really, really starts our attack with that constant movement in and around the ball.”