RHS picks up two wins in home area soccer doubleheader against Ardmore

The Russellville High School varsity girls’ and boys’ soccer teams both picked up home wins against Ardmore in an area doubleheader at Golden Tiger Stadium Thursday night.

The Golden Tiger girls kicked off the evening with a 3-2 victory over the Tigers, improving to 4-2 overall this season. The win also keeps Russellville perfect at 3-0 in area play. Despite that, Russellville head coach Dalany Roberts was not pleased with her team’s performance against a 2-5 Ardmore squad.

“The reality of it is we did not play at the capacity that we know we’re able to play at,” Roberts said. “We come from a game where we won 9-1, where we maintain possession 90 percent of the game to a game where we’re fighting tooth and nail for a 3-2 win.”

Roberts was disappointed with the mental fortitude of the players and she said it affected their play.

“We have a horrible problem of getting in our head when we feel like any of the conditions change,” she said. “Cold weather, we have our top player that gets hurt, and we shut down.”

“We played sloppy and we let things get into our head and we played at a level that we shouldn’t be playing at,” Roberts added.

Ardmore opened up the scoring in the 17th minute with a free kick goal from Edrianna Inestroza. Russellville was quick to equalize, however, earning a free kick of its own in the 21st minute which Keyla Martinez put in the back of the net from about 21 yards out. The goal was Martinez’s second of the season.

The score remained 1-1 at the halftime break but Russellville found a go-ahead goal early in the second half. In the 44th minute, a Golden Tiger corner kick into the box was cleared out but only as far as Kimberly Mojica who, from 30 yards out, smashed the ball first time and into the back of the net.

“(Mojica) and Keyla Martinez both have a really powerful foot and if we can play the ball correctly to the top of the box, those are hard shots to defend. They come in at an awkward angle and usually they slip in at the very top of the goal,” Roberts said. “It was a beautiful goal, it really was, and I was very, very proud of her for that.”

Russellville’s third and final goal of the evening—the goal that would prove to be the game-winner—came in the 73rd minute. Latching on to a ball passed down the right flank, Ermelina Ponce put a cross into the box that ran past an Ardmore defender and into the path of Gloria Sop. The tap in from close range was no problem for Sop as she grabbed her second goal of the year.

Ardmore would go on to add a late goal to make it 3-2, but with just 30 seconds remaining there was no comeback forthcoming. 

Roberts was slightly happier with Russellville’s play in the second half, but the second-year head coach’s final assessment of the game was the Golden Tigers still have plenty to work on.

“We didn’t come out to play at our full intensity. (Ardmore) were hungrier than us and we’re lucky that we continued to step it up and were able to slip in a few goals,” Roberts said. “We’ll keep pushing. A win is a win, and we feel successful that we’re still 3-0, but we’ve got a long way to go.”

The Russellville boys’ soccer team needed just 50 minutes to dispatch Ardmore 10-0 in the final game of the evening. The Golden Tigers scored seven goals in the first half and needed just 10 more minutes in the second half to score three more and trigger the mercy rule. The win pushed the Golden Tigers to a 5-2-1 overall record as Russellville remains a flawless 3-0 in Area 8. 

“The guys came out and they played pretty hard,” Russellville head coach Trey Stanford said. “We talked about the intensity level, where it needs to be when we play, and how it hasn’t been on the level it should have been recently. I felt like we came out and played pretty hard and played well tonight.”

Five different Golden Tigers got on the scoresheet against Ardmore but the man of the match was definitely Erik Jacobo, who scored half of Russellville’s 10 goals. Starting in the eighth minute, Jacobo scored five consecutive goals in a span of 10 minutes. Two of his goals, in the ninth and 17th minutes, came off corner kicks delivered by Aurelio Andres. Hailezgy Tekle and Isais Jose also added assists on two of Jacobo's goals.

“Erik Jacobo had a heckuva night. Five goals, that’s a lot of goals,” Stanford said. “He played really well tonight. He was heading crosses, he was heading corners in, he was running through the goal, which is what we worked on at practice. It’s good to see some stuff that you work on show up in a game.”

Brian Lara added two goals in the game to give him eight for the year. Nievez Figueroa Jr. and Cesar Ponce each scored their first goals of the season. Hailezgy Tekle, the team’s leading scorer alongside Lara, scored the final goal of the game, making it 10-0.

After a recent tough stretch of games at a tournament in Florence last weekend Stanford is excited about the last few wins and happy to see the goals spread around; however, the eighth-year head coach stressed the importance of his young squad maintaining a team-first mentality through the highs and lows of the season.

“As a team we have a lot of talent. But everybody’s got to be in this together. Our community, everybody’s got to be in together, working together, all pulling the same direction,” Stanford said. “This year we’re young, so you know it’s easy for a young team or parents or people around the program to start bickering or making comments. Things aren’t always going to go well with young kids.”

Stanford pointed to Russellville’s narrow 1-0 loss to undefeated 6A power Mountain Brook last Friday as testament to the talent and potential the Golden Tigers can unlock.

“You’ve got 10th graders stepping up playing against Mountain Brook, who’s 12-0, nationally ranked, a great program, and you only lose 1-0,” he said. “A lot of sophomores, a lot of juniors did really well in that game. If we can get everybody staying on board with us, I really believe what we’re doing is working.”

“I think these young men have a great opportunity to make it back to Huntsville and I think they’re buying in more and more as we go along. I’m extremely proud of them and the fact that they seem to still be on board with us and trust us as their coaches,” he added.

West Morgan is the next opponent on the schedule for both teams. The Golden Tiger girls’ team will travel to West Morgan while the boys’ team is set to play host to the Rebels on March 4.