For nearly 35 minutes on Saturday afternoon, it looked like the Lowry High School boys soccer team was going to get routed by South Tahoe in its final home match on a cool, windy and wet day.
The Vikings, who beat the Buckaroos 5-0 earlier in the season, jumped out to a 3-0 lead after 29 minutes of play, and were on their way to handing Lowry a crucial loss in the playoff picture.
However, Lowry battled back with two goals in the final six minutes of the first half and scored two more in the second half, including the winning goal in stoppage time to shock South Tahoe 4-3. It was the first win in school history for the Buckaroos over the Vikings.
“Just another crazy game,” said LHS coach Steve Swanson. “That is probably the greatest game for Lowry boys soccer against the only team in the league that we have never beaten. We got down 3-0 and fought all the way back.”
South Tahoe took a 1-0 lead in the seventh minute off a goal by Alex Norling and added to the lead 15 minutes later. The Vikings went up 3-0 in the 29th minute off a penalty kick, after Lowry goalie Angel Galarza was called for a foul in the box. That turned out to be the final goal for South Tahoe, but the Vikings had their chances in the second half.
Lowry began to see its offensive pressure pick up in the final 10 minutes of the first half and was able to cut the deficit to 3-1 in the 34th minute off a goal by Andrew Bravo.
Three minutes later, Anthony Cuevas collected a rebound in the box and fired as shot that cut the gap to 3-2, which was the score at halftime.
Just two minutes into the second half, JJ Backus scored his first goal of the year off a corner kick to tie the match at 3-3.
South Tahoe had a chance to retake the lead in the 60th minute, but a shot at an empty goal hit the top cross bar. The Vikings had a goal called back in the 67th minute due to an offside call.
Lowry had a handful of chances to go in front as well, but could not finish near the goal.
“We played with fire at times, but we had our chances too,” Swanson said. “It was a good, fair, even, hard-fought game. The kids didn’t quit. Sometimes when you get down 3-0 you are going to quit, especially with the conditions today. They came back and played hard.”
With South Tahoe playing a man down for the final 10 minutes, Lowry turned up the pressure on offense. In stoppage time, a first corner kick did not lead to a goal but seconds later a second one did. Alexander Ruiz took the corner in a congested box and was able to get the winning goal.
“JJ and Alex were playing out of defensive positions,” added the coach. “JJ is a defensive midfielder and Alex is defender. It was every man up. We were without our best defender due to a red card. Giovanni (Sapien) played great and the Cuevas’ played well all weekend. Everybody did their job.”
Lowry cruises past Incline
Lowry celebrated senior night on Friday with a 5-1 win over Incline. The Buckaroos led 1-0 at halftime and scored four goals in the final 40 minutes. Anthony Cuevas recorded a hat trick and Christian Cuevas had two goals.
Sparks has clinched the top seed in the Northern 3A ‘A’ division at 13-0-1. North Valleys moved into second place at 9-5-1 and South Tahoe has dropped to third place at 9-5-0 after losing three straight matches.
North Tahoe and Lowry are tied for fourth at 8-5-2, with the Lakers holding the tiebreaker. The two teams meet in the regular-season finale on Nov. 1.
Truckee is sixth a 6-6-2, Elko is seventh at 5-6-4 and Spring Creek 5-9-1 is eighth. The top five teams qualify for the regional tournament in Fallon on Nov. 7-9.
Lowry traveled to Spring Creek on Tuesday and results were not available at press time. The Buckaroos are back on the road on Tuesday, Oct. 29, to play Elko at 4 p.m.
“There is not time to relax,” Swanson said. “We need to be ready to go to Elko. We need to beat them and they are playing well right now.”
