The Lake Havasu boys soccer team put together two impressive wins Thursday for the first day of the Mohave County Soccer Tournament.
The Knights began pool play in the boys tournament by outscoring their opponents 19-1. Havasu started the tourney with a 10-1 victory over Lee Williams and later beat River Valley 9-0. The Mohave County tournament returns after a one-year hiatus and is taking place in Havasu this season due to its turn in the rotation with the other Mohave County schools.
Both of the Knights’ games ended with the mercy rule, which shortened games to 45 minutes in pool play after a team is up by eight goals. All of Thursday’s pool play games were played with 30 minute halves.
Thursday’s results were far better with the Knights’ season opening 6-1 loss to Mohave on Monday. The Knights will look to avenge that loss when they face the Thunderbirds Friday night in the second day of the tournament.
“I think that really woke them up,” Knights coach Christina Gibbs said about the opening season loss. “Practice had a different feeling Tuesday and Wednesday. Way more serious and way more focused. So I think tomorrow will be a different game.”
In the game against River Valley, Havasu wasted no time, jumping to a 7-0 lead at halftime. The Knights first got on the board with goals from Jesse Dominguez (third minute) and Angel Castaneda (fourth minute). Dominguez dribbled in open space before kicking it into the net. Castaneda scored on a header off a corner kick from Jose Alvarado.
Castaneda added his second goal of the day with a wide open shot in the 10th minute. The junior had a wide open net after River Valley’s goalkeeper over played the ball while defending Castaneda.
Alvarado later scored on a free kick from inside the box in the 13 minute. Jaden Baker scored twice (15th minute, 19) and David Fonseca added to the Knights lead a minute before halftime. The Knights added two more goals in the shortened 15-minute second half.
“Today we had a lot of communication,” Dominguez said. “We practiced passing, getting open for each other, shooting, so everything worked out good for us today.”
Gibbs said she brought up four players from junior varsity for the tournament. Many players received playing time in the River Valley game due to the Knights’ large lead.
With the Knights finishing pool play at 2-0, they’ll meet the Thunderbirds in a crossover game Friday at 6 p.m. The crossover game is a matchup of the tournament’s top two teams since the Thunderbirds also went 2-0 in their pool. Winner of Friday’s game moves into bracket play Saturday as the top seed and the loser gets the No. 2 seed.
“We just need to be prepared for tomorrow because they’re good, they’re going to come at us hard,” Castaneda said. “It’s definitely going to be a fight tomorrow for sure.