Everything goes Wright for Fountain Valley
The Fountain Valley High boys’ soccer team started a freshman in its back line on Wednesday in a nonleague match against Dana Hills.
Cantor Wright started alongside his older brother, sophomore Connor Wright, and everything went right defensively for the Barons in their 3-0 shutout at home.
Senior goalkeeper Bryce Nichols was pivotal in the Fountain Valley shutout. The senior withstood a barrage of shots in the opening 20 minutes of the game and halted the Dolphins’ rhythm.
“It was an important game defensively, [and] we needed a good game out of our goalie and our back four,” Fountain Valley coach Jason Smith said. “[Cantor] did well. It’s just a matter of getting him experience and playing, but the defense did well, it was a well-earned shutout.”
Ethan Mack finished with two goals for Fountain Valley (3-1-1), and Tony Tobon added one.
Dana Hills (2-3-0) attacked the Fountain Valley goal in the opening nine minutes with two early shots on target. Five minutes in, Dolphin forward Kasra Diba was in a one-on-one opportunity against Nichols, but Nichols got the key save to deny the scoring opportunity.
Nichols came up big again four minutes later. Dana Hills midfielder Bobby Reynolds had a good look with defenders draped on him, but Nichols dived for another key save.
“I thought [the Dolphins] were the better team for the first 25 minutes or so,” Smith said. “We need to have more energy and put more pressure on teams to start than we did. We sat back and gave them too many opportunities, and fortunately for us, we made saves to prevent that … to keep us in it and gave us an opportunity to get a couple of goals of our own.”
Fountain Valley scored its first goal in the 19th minute, relying on Mack, the Barons’ leading scorer from last season. The senior forward shot a ball from about 20 yards out and caught the Dana Hills goalkeeper off position.
Right before the end of the first half, Mack, who has scored four goals in the Barons’ five games, recorded his second of the game off a side volley. The ball came from midfielder Matt Ruiz, who battled to feed Mack the cross inside the box.
The second half was all Fountain Valley. Mack nearly got his third goal seven minutes in, finding a ball from midfielder Sebastian Rus, but he was unable to curl a shot from the left post. A minute later, midfielder Bryan Martinez connected with Ruiz on a soft touch but the chip by Ruiz was too wide.
Tobon finally capped off the Barons’ flurry of shots with a high-arching shot that the Dana Hills keeper managed to touch with his fingertips. The ball bounced straight to the top post and in the goal.
Dana Hills almost scored its consolation goal with just seven minutes left in the contest, but Nichols was not going to let anything go into the back of the net. He finished with six saves.
“There’s nothing better than winning, especially after the [2-0] loss [to Santa Ana on Dec. 6], just the ability to bounce back and get the win,” Nichols said. “I think the team is looking good and we’re only getting better. We still have some mistakes that we were making and we’re going to have to look to fix that and be the best team we can be.”
The Barons will look to build off their momentum when they play at Segerstrom on Friday at 3:15 p.m.
JUAN CARLOS GONZALEZ is a contributor to Times Community News. Follow him on Twitter: @JGonzalezSports
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.
