Fresh off of a 3-1 victory last Saturday against North Valleys at home, the Lowry boys varsity soccer team took on its nemesis Truckee on Tuesday and prevailed 4-3 over the Wolverines for the first time in school history.
“We have tied Truckee a couple of times but we have never beaten them; beating them is a big deal,” LHS coach Steve Swanson said. “It is like a bugaboo that the players have had, getting passed down from generation to generation, and now the voodoo is gone. There is no impression of Truckee anymore of being someone that we can’t touch. We proved today that we can win ugly, because that was an ugly game. The first two goals that we gave up were bad, and the last goal that we gave up was horrible play by our defenders forgetting that they are supposed to talk to each other.”
Truckee scored the first two goals of the game in the first half before Giovanni Sapien shot a header into the net off a corner kick to make it 2-1 at the half.
“We came out to play in the second half and finally decided to play our game,” Swanson said. “The boys did a great job of passing; the ball was always wide and we were not trying to force it through their defense.”
Sapien scored early in the second half off an Anthony Cuevas assist to tie it up at two apiece.
“We started out a little rough, maybe a little cocky from the North Valleys game," Sapien said. "But throughout the minutes of the match we started working together and calming down, making our passes to the feet and trying to play perfect through balls. We ended up getting those chances and we took advantage of them to come back from 2-0. It was a rough, hard game; we were going back and forth and the refs let it slide both ways, so it was equally played. It was getting a little out of hand there at the end, but overall that was a great team that we played and we finally beat them.”
The third Buckaroo goal was scored by Anthony Cuevas to take the lead 3-2, but that was only part of the story.
“Johann (Silva) had the best “dummy” in the history of mankind off a corner kick,” Swanson said. “He let the ball run through his legs to the far post and Anthony was wide open.”
Cuevas picked up his second assist a few minutes later when he passed to his cousin Christian Cuevas and he put it into the net for a 4-2 Lowry lead.
Truckee gave the Buckaroos a scare with a late goal to make it 4-3, but did not get any closer.
“All in all, it was a pretty good game; they played pretty well and I am very happy with them,” Swanson said. “I am not happy with the mistakes, but we got through them. Of all the things that I am proud of with this year’s team, the thing I am the most proud of is that they work hard. No matter what the score is they keep going for it. It is going to be a fun season.”
North Tahoe visited Winnemucca on Friday and the results of the contest were not available at press time.
Churchill County (Fallon) takes on Lowry Tuesday, Sept. 10 at 5 p.m. to conclude their five game home-stand opening schedule.
