On April 19th, Canyon Vista soccer season kicked off. The combined 7th and 8th grade team were hot, ready, and raring to go into a new year of matches. Their first opponent? Hernandez Middle school. And the home opener did not disappoint.

Hernandez kicked off, but our Mustangs started the game pressing their backline high and forcing them to play quickly out of the back. And eight minutes in, the high-energy “Gegenpressing” led to a turnover in the Hernandez half, on which midfielder Zeyad Elchouemi capitalized upon to take a 1-0 lead, with a neat bit of dribbling on the edge of the box leading to space for a left-footed shot that trickled in under the goalkeeper’s body and into the back of the net.  Our Mustangs continued to press on and force the Bulldogs’s hand in their final third. They came close multiple times in the first half, but no other real chances of note coming except for a midfielder Diego Djordjevic free-kick that whizzed over the crossbar.

In the second half, Hernandez kicked on from a dismal first-half showing and started to really threaten the Red and Blue. But again it was CV with the better chances at the beginning. Striker Govind Ramesh spurned a one-on-one with the keeper to go 2-0 up with a tame weak-footed volley on the counter, midfielder/forward Kiyan Tavasoli blazed a shot over the crossbar inside the 18, and defender/midfielder Andrew Bailey’s wayward cross caused questions of the goalkeeper before looping onto the roof of the net. Hernandez also had many chances in the second half, causing danger on the counter-attack and set-pieces threatening the backline. But a string of clutch save from goalkeeper Suhaas Patil, couples with the stout defense of defenders Grayson Goodale, Matthew Jack, Faris Smith, Alex Swanson, and Bailey ensuring that the Mustangs pulled out the first win of the season, 1-0.