WINNEMUCCA - Throughout the three months of its season, the players on the Lowry High School junior varsity boys soccer team never got down, despite seeing the losses add up.
The Buckaroos wrapped up their season last week and came away with their first win of the season, a 3-1 decision over Spring Creek on Thursday, Oct. 31.
"The guys have played hard and never gave up," said LHS head coach Ron Espinola. "They have improved quite a bit from the beginning of the season. They came out every day and wanted to get better."
It didn't take long for the Buckaroos to get on the scoreboard, as Homero Esquivel provided a through pass to Ariel Gonzalez, who finished off the goal.
"We have had a couple of early leads but could never make them hold up," Espinola said. "We have been a 65-minute team in an 80-minute match. We finally came out and played an entire match and it showed."
Lowry held the slim one-goal lead for the rest of the first half and just about all of the final 40 minutes of play.
Spring Creek had an opportunity to tie the match in the 70th minute on a penalty kick, when Nathan Kepler was whistled for a hand ball. Kepler was red-carded for the foul and the Buckaroos had to play a man down for the rest of the match.
However, Lowry's Sergio Lopez knocked away the penalty kick and did the same thing two minutes later, when the Buckaroos were called for a foul in the box.
"He has come such a long way this season," added the coach. "I had all the faith in the world that he was going to stop those penalty kicks. He came up and took a big leadership role on this team."
Taking the best shots from Spring Creek, Lowry picked up a much-needed insurance goal in the 76th minute as Aguilar made a move by a Spring Creek defender and fired a shot into the net for a 2-0 lead.
Spring Creek prevented the shutout, scoring on a free kick in the 79th minute from just above the 18-yard box.
That was as close as the Spartans got, as Lowry added a third goal one minute later on a free kick from 50 yards out by Aguilar that landed in the top corner of the net.
"We knew we were a guy down but still came out and wanted to be aggressive," Espinola said. "We had a couple players that were back that helped out. When you have those extra guys on the bench, you can do some different things."
Lowry closed out its season on Friday, Nov. 1, at Elko and lost 4-1 to the Indians.
"For the amount of frustration that they dealt with all season long, you have to give credit to these guys," Espinola said. "They didn't let that affect them and they went out there and worked and got better. That is not me. That is them going out there and adjusting their attitude. They could have easily walked away and said they were done."[[In-content Ad]]
