Special to the Leader & Times
In recent years, the road to the Western Athletic Conference soccer championship has gone through Dodge City. Tuesday, the Redskins made a major step forward in chasing the WAC title with a 3-1 road win over the Red Demons.
The game lived up to the hype of two teams that have started off the season hot and played some very close and intense games over the last few years.
The first half was back and forth with both teams only coming up with a couple shots on goal and a lot of physical play. When the horn sounded to end the first half the score was 0-0.
Both teams reset at half, and when the second half got started the intensity ramped up even more.
At the 13:03 mark into the second half, D’Alessandro Chavira got taken out just outside the box which led to a free kick and yellow card for Dodge City. Senior Josh Garcia took advantage and found the back of the net to give LHS the 1-0 lead.
The next 20 minutes the score stayed 1-0 in favor of the Redskins and the game just kept getting more intense and physical and led to many fouls and multiple yellow cards for both teams.
The Redskins had a misplay in getting the ball cleared, and Dodge capitalized to tie the game up at 1-1 33:40 into the second half.
The Redskins kept their composure after the goal and less than a minute later drew another penalty just outside the box. Josh Garcia lined up to take it again and found the back of the net for the second time in the game.
The Redskins’ back line came up strong in stopping many late attacks. With less than three minutes left in the game Dodge got called for another foul outside the box and this time Senior D’Alessandro Chavira put the free kick in the back of the net to seal the win.
The LHS defense defended Dodge corners and free kicks very well led by Aron Duque manning the back line.
If the attack did get past them Diego Flores was in the right position to make the save and keep them from adding any goals.
The win moved the soccer team to 6-0 and 2-0 in the WAC. Another big game comes quickly as Garden City travels to Liberal today.
