MVHS boys soccer lost their first home game of the season against the Homestead Mustangs on Thursday, Jan. 15. This was their fifth league matchup and eleventh overall.
Coming into the game, head coach Jim McGuirk said that despite health struggles, the team felt good.
“We had some guys hurt and sick, and we were a little banged u,p but we were feeling good,” McGuirk said.
From kickoff, the Spartans made plenty of attacks into the Homestead half, while holding down the defense in their own half. The first goal came in the 12th minute by senior midfielder Cyrus Shafie.
Following Shafie’s goal, a successful penalty shot by junior midfielder Michael Montoya came just two minutes later. Despite MVHS conceding a goal to the Mustangs in the 22nd minute, McGuirk said the Spartans had “got to a good start” entering halftime with a score of 2-1.
The game’s flow began to shift in the 2nd half as MVHS allowed more advances and shots on goal. Shafie took multiple shots on the Homestead goal, but they were blocked or missed entirely. Despite the Spartans’ great defense, in the 59th minute, they allowed a goal by Homestead to tie the game.
As the half continued, both sides exchanged fouls with one another, and junior midfielder Marko Nedeljkovic received a yellow card. In the 67th minute, the Mustangs scored a 3rd goal. MVHS was unsuccessful in tying up the game, and the final score was 2-3.
Montoya said that the team felt quite ahead of themselves with their lead entering halftime.
“We were up 2-1 in the first half, and we thought we had the game in the bag,” Montoya said.
McGurk said the team would look over their mistakes in hopes of improving their performance for next time.
“What we’ll do is we’ll go watch the game again,” McGuirk said, “just to see where our mistakes were and try to clean those up.”
After the game, MVHS’s overall record fell to 8-1-2, with its league record becoming 4-1. Despite the loss, the Spartans continue to hold first in the SCVAL De Anza League. Their next matchup is against Palo Alto High on Tuesday, Jan. 20.
“Our season’s been going great so far,” McGuirk said.
