Esperanza Buries Troubles, Beats Fountain Valley, but Barons Win the Coin Flip

With a share of the Sunset League title at stake, Esperanza Coach Kino Oaxaca wanted his boys’ soccer team to think positively against visiting Fountain Valley.

So, the day before Friday’s game, he handed pads of paper to his players and told them to jot down everything they had done wrong during the season. Then he dug a big hole at mid-field of the soccer field and buried the papers.

Well, soccer can be a game of emotion and the trick seemed to work. Esperanza won, 1-0.

“We came to play from start to finish,” Oaxaca said. “Today we were ready from defense to offense.”

The victory avenged a 2-1 loss to Fountain Valley in the first round of league play and gave the Aztecs a share of the league title with Fountain Valley.

But Oaxaca and Esperanza got buried on the coin flip after the game that determined who would be the Sunset League’s top-seeded team in the Southern Section playoffs. Fountain Valley won that one.

Still, Oaxaca was beaming long after Friday’s victory. He pointed to a brown patch of grass inside the center circle on Esperanza’s lighted field.

“Today we buried all our bad thoughts,” he said.

The ploy was a direct result of Tuesday’s disappointing performance in a 2-1 overtime loss to Marina, Oaxaca said. Had Esperanza won that game, Friday’s victory would have given the Aztecs the title by themselves.

Nevertheless, in a spirited match against Fountain Valley, Chris Welch scored the only goal in the 28th minute when he headed in a long throw-in from Van Skoglund. Nate Fiske earned his 11th shutout in goal for the third-ranked Aztecs (22-3-1, 8-2). Fountain Valley, ranked fourth, finished the regular season 15-5-3, 8-2.

Fiske made eight saves in the final half and Oaxaca gave the sophomore goalkeeper much of the credit for the victory.