By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

SALEM, Ore.–  The Blanchet Catholic Boys Soccer team took advantage of Dayton’s slow start to get a quick goal in the opening ten minutes before the Pirates settled back down in Wednesday’s 3A/2A/1A Special District 2 match at Blanchet.

The goal, by Geovanni Escobar, proved to be the lone goal in the contest until Oswaldo Rosas’ goal in the 54th minute that tied the game up.  Sparking both teams in the eventual physical game, it became up to the final whistle.  Rosas pointed to the importance of them waking it up after the Escobar goal and holding the Cavaliers to that goal, but knowing that they need to do more from the opening whistle as they have aspirations of another deep playoff run in the 3A/2A/1A Classification.

” I think what really messed us up was the first ten minutes of the game.  Every other game we’ve been scored on in the first ten minutes and that’s really what gives us the ties.  The goal (today) came off a simple play.  That simple goal was what really woke us up and got our intensity up a lot,” Rosas said.  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.  Once we started waking up the first ten minutes and start playing like these last ten minutes, then we’ll get back on track because we’ll be extremely dangerous.”

For Blanchet, being able to withstand that barrage of pressure from the Dayton offense was a good sign coming from their 6-0 defeat to Riverdale and their 6-2 defeat to Delphian/Willamina earlier this season as they went toe-to-toe with a Dayton program that reached the State Finals this past season.

“It felt good and was exciting because it was our first big game and we tied them.  Our team, we communicated and we’ve been practicing really good…coming from Riverdale, we lost really badly and we didn’t want to lose anymore so we had to step up our games  a little more,” Escobar said.

Blanchet, who’s 5-2-1 on the year and 1-1-1 in league, are off until next Wednesday when they host Western Christian/Amity.  Escobar points to them controlling the ball more as they prepare for that game with the Pioneers and for the rest of the season.  Dayton, who’s 3-4-1 and 1-0-1 in league, will have little time to flush the game out of their memories as they’ll host Gervais on Friday.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald