It was a roller coaster of highs and lows for the Lowry High School boys soccer team as it hosted Spring Creek on Tuesday night.
The Buckaroos gave up an early goal in the ninth minute to trail 1-0, but scored twice in the first half to lead 2-1 at halftime. Lowry held the advantage until the 57th minute when Spring Creek tied the match. It went downhill from there, as the Spartans scored four times in between the 65th and 80th minutes for a 6-2 victory.
"I just don't know right now," said LHS coach Steve Swanson. "We played a great first half and was controlling the play. We gave up the couple of goals in the second half and we were done. We stopped playing."
The opening goal for the Spartans came inside the first 10 minutes of the match, when the Lowry defenders hesitated and stopped anticipating an offside call that never came. Spring Creek's William Church was left free for the open shot.
The advantage did not last long as Lowry (2-4 Division I-A North, 3-7 overall) struck two minutes later after Jesus Escobedo took a pass from Roberto Sanchez in the middle of the field and fired the ball past the Spring Creek goalie. The Buckaroos took the lead later in the first half by Luis Pardini off a rebound.
"Those were two good goals." Swanson said. "We were getting through their defense fairly easy and dominated the play after they scored that first goal. We were fired up."
Spring Creek countered with the equalizing goal 17 minutes into the second half off a header by Jaysen Woodland that started with a corner kick.
"We were playing with fire the entire second half," added the coach. "You can not give teams that many corner kicks like be did tonight."
The Spartans scored the eventual winning goal in the 65th minute when Spencer Pemelton put back a shot that was originally stopped by Buckaroo goalie Sergio Lopez.
With about 15 minutes to play, Lowry played a man down to a red card, as Brian Shettler was sent off as he tried to stop a breakaway opportunity by Spring Creek.
The Spartans went on to add goals in the 76th, 77th and 80th minute to account for the final total. Logan Billin had two goals in that stretch and Woodland the other.
The schedule does not get any easier with three road games in a five days. Lowry travels to South Tahoe today for a 4 p.m. match and Saturday to Truckee for a noon start. The Buckaroos are back on the road Tuesday in Fallon to play Churchill County at 4 p.m.
"We are going to come back to practice and figure something out," Swanson said. "We are not giving up on the season by no means. We still have a second half to play. If we can't make the playoffs then we go out and try to spoil it for the other teams we play. I just have to find a way to make us mentally tougher. We can't have one little issue bring us down."[[In-content Ad]]
