Ugly Tie Is a Bad Gift for Oilers, Barons
It would have been difficult to dress up Friday’s 0-0 Sunset League tie between second-ranked Fountain Valley and sixth-ranked Huntington Beach, so neither coach bothered to try.
“It was kind of ugly,” Huntington Beach Coach Kevin Smith said. “Real even, boring, no momentum either way. We didn’t create a whole lot of scoring chances, neither did they.”
Fountain Valley Coach Jason Smith agreed with his brother.
“It was a rough one,” he said. “Not the prettiest game. On a somewhat narrow and bumpy field, you’ll see that kind of play. A typical high school soccer game with a lot of emotion.”
Ugly or not, the tie looked a lot prettier to Jason Smith, whose team picked up a point on the road without its best player--forward Cliff McKinley, who is playing in an Olympic Development Program tournament in Arizona.
“We needed to step up today and we did,” Jason Smith said. “Any time you’ve got 21 goals out of your lineup, it’s going to hurt. Cliff’s a guy that makes a good team a great team.”
Fountain Valley (13-2-3, 4-1-2) remains in first place with three games to go. Huntington Beach (13-3-2, 3-3-1) is fighting for a playoff berth with Esperanza, Edison and Los Alamitos.
“We felt like we needed to win the game at home anyway, whether they had McKinley or not,” Kevin Smith said.
Even with 20 minutes of overtime both teams combined for only 11 shots on goal--seven by Huntington Beach and four by Fountain Valley. Drew McAthy gave Huntington Beach its best chance late in the first half. He drove a 25-yard free kick at Fountain Valley keeper Kyle Polack, but Polack tipped it over the crossbar.
Minutes earlier, Fountain Valley almost scored on a Chris Wimmer header that was cleared off the goal line by a Huntington Beach defender.
“I think a goal would have made this a better game,” Kevin Smith said. “It would have loosened things up. The whole game seemed like the first five minutes of every game, a feeling-out process. But nothing ever happened.”
In other Sunset League games:
No. 10 Esperanza 3, Los Alamitos 0--Mudawar Sammer scored a goal in each half and Matt McNally also scored to lead visiting Esperanza (14-5-3, 4-3).
Edison 2, Marina 0--Eric Blaska scored two goals for Edison (13-3-2, 4-2-1). Marina is 7-9-3, 1-6.