Town, Mendoza help Crims rally past Kings
Last season, the Yuma High boys soccer team, while making the 5A playoffs, didn't win a game against Gila Valley Region powers Kofa and San Luis.
The Criminals remedied that in their first game against either team Friday at Doan Field.
Down two in the final five minutes, Mauricio Town scored two goals in a three-minute span to force overtime as the Criminals stunned the Kings on penalty kicks, 3-2.
Yuma coach Jaime Ibarra said his players came up big in the win over Kofa, which topped the AIA power rankings.
"We wanted this game more than they did," Ibarra said. "They were overconfident. They're a good team, and they knew they could take us if we gave them an opportunity."
Kofa (4-1, 1-1 region) scored the only goal of the first half in the 26th minute when Fabian Guiza pushed the ball left past diving goalie Ernesto Mendoza.
Five minutes into the second half, Jose Medina outran a loose ball behind the Yuma defense to put the Kings up 2-0.
But momentum shifted with 6:23 left, when Kofa defender Alex Hazen hurt his right leg when a Yuma defender collided with him. Hazen had to be taken off the field in an ambulance.
Two minutes later, Town chased down a ball behind the Kofa defense to close the gap to 2-1. With 1:35 left, Town again sprinted past the Kofa defense and beat goalie Jordan Perez to tie the game.
"We felt the pressure," Town said. "We play well under pressure. I think that's one of the traits we have as a team. I think just knowing we were going to lose home field made us go score two goals real quick."
Kofa outshot the Criminals (3-2, 2-0) in the overtime, but couldn't get a shot past Mendoza. That included a golden opportunity to win the game when Yuma committed a penalty inside the goal box with 14.5 seconds left in the overtime. Fabian Guiza took the penalty kick, but was denied when Mendoza extended to block the shot along the ground to the left side.
Mendoza shined in the penalty kicks, stuffing the first two Kofa attempts as Yuma made its two. And when Christian Hernandez's shot went left while Perez dove right to put the Criminals up 4-1 in PKs, Yuma had a big region win.
Ibarra said Mendoza came up predictably big - stuffing two of three PKs, plus the one at the end of overtime.
"That's what he does," Ibarra said. "He already won us two games at the El Centro tourney by stopping PKs. He did many last year. This is his specialty, and we knew he was going to pull us through."
Kofa coach Jamie Nicewander agreed with his counterpart on the clutch performance turned in by Mendoza.
"You have to put those away, but their goalkeeper came up big," Nicewander said. "There's no doubt about that. He kept them in this game. Their goalkeeper really won the game for them, to be honest."
The Kings were already down two starters heading into the game, Nicewander said, and losing Hazen late proved to be too much to overcome.
"We have a nice bench, and our bench outplayed them today, no doubt about it,' Nicewander said. "We outplayed them on the field, but unfortunately the last five or six minutes the guys lost their concentration."
The Kings - region tourney champs last year - face regular-season region champs San Luis noon Monday at Kofa.
Ibarra said this win shows that the region should be considered a three-team race.
"We knew we were capable of taking them," Ibarra said. "This team is a good team, this team is well-coached. I have a lot of respect for coach Nicewander and for his staff. If we're going to be competitive, we need to play against the big boys. And they're big boys."
