The Lowry High School boys soccer team could not overcome a slow start at Truckee on Friday, Oct. 4, and suffered a 3-2 loss to the Wolverines.
It was just the third league road match for the Buckaroos, who played seven of their first Northern 3A matches at home.
Lowry dropped to 5-4-1 in the Northern 3A, but is still in the middle of the playoff hunt.
“We just got off to a slow start and you can’t do that against a team like Truckee,” said LHS coach Steve Swanson. “They are not the Truckee of old like they have been, but are still a good team. I liked that we came back and made it a game. They were on two red cards and if we had more time, I think we could have come all the way back.”
Truckee used a pair of goals by Kevin Rodriguez to take a 2-0 lead in the first half. Edgar Munoz added a goal in the second half for the Wolverines.
Anthony Cuevas netted Lowry’s first goal, on a penalty kick. About two minutes later, Giovanni Sapien made his way through the Truckee defense and connected on a shot to cut the deficit to 3-2.
“There is no panic right now,” Swanson said. “We are fine. We need to work harder in practice. The work in practice is not where it needs to be. We don’t want to work hard and that is translating into the game. You will always fight the way you train and we are not training hard enough. Some of that is on me.”
Sparks (11-0) and South Tahoe (8-4) have separated themselves from the rest of the league for now. However, you can throw a blanket over the teams in the third through seventh spots. The top six teams advance to the Northern 3A Regional Championships in Fallon on Nov. 7-9.
North Tahoe is third with 19 points at 6-4-1, while North Tahoe is fourth with 19 points at 6-5-1. Elko is fifth (5-3-3, 18 points) and Lowry (5-4-1) and Truckee (5-5-1) are tied for sixth.
Lowry took on Sparks on Friday and travels to North Valleys today (Saturday) for a noon match.
“It doesn’t get any easier for us,” Swanson said. “We played one of our best matches of the year when we played Sparks the first time. We need to get out of the weekend with at least three points. Picking up four would be great for us.”
