Call It a Tough Loss for Fountain Valley

It was only a nonleague game, but it was still a chance for fifth-ranked Fountain Valley to knock off top-ranked Santa Margarita at the Eagles’ field.

So maybe that’s why Fountain Valley Coach Jason Smith was still shaking his head about an offsides call that contributed to the Barons’ 2-1 loss in boys’ soccer Wednesday.

“It’s a big game for us,” Smith said. “To have it come down to a couple calls, it’s tough. But I guess we have to get used to it. We have to put teams away when we have the chance.”

Fountain Valley, which scored first on a Cliff McKinley goal, appeared to go up, 2-0, late in the first half. But an offsides call nullified Sean Iliff’s tap-in of a McKinley shot from 25 yards away.

“That would have been huge for us,” Smith said. “We would have kept the momentum going into the second half and we would have had a nice cushion.”

Santa Margarita Coach Curt Bauer didn’t quite see Smith’s point.

“I thought it was offsides,” Bauer said. “The ref called it right away.”

Things went downhill for Fountain Valley (3-1) from there. Santa Margarita tied it, 1-1, in the 54th minute on an own goal. Goalkeeper Kyle Polack made a nifty save of a Sebastian Galmarini header, but as a defender tried to clear it over the back of the goal, he headed it into the net. Eleven minutes later, Galmarini hit a streaking Shane MacEachern with a perfect 40-yard pass, and MacEachern tapped it in to give Santa Margarita a 2-1 lead.

“I heard someone call ‘far’ and I just put it in there,” Galmarini said. “I didn’t even see Shane there.”

Bauer said the Eagles (3-0-2) weren’t at the top of their game.

“We were pretty awful from beginning to end, but a lot of that had to do with how Fountain Valley played,” he said. “We’ve been punished to a pulp physically this year. This game was no different. They play long ball and they do it well.”