Central Oregonian

Cowboys blanked by Ravens

Ridgeview rolls to 4-0 halftime lead in shutout of Crook County

LON AUSTIN/CENTRAL OREGONIAN

Alonzo Lopez controls the ball for the Cowboys during the second half of their game with the Ridgeview Ravens. Ridgeview won the match 4-0.

Lon Austin

October 04, 2012

The Ridgeview Ravens played 20 minutes of dominate soccer, and that was enough as they held on to defeat Crook County 4-0 in Special District I boys soccer action.

The Ravens were able to take advantage of a tentative Cowboy defense to score all four of their goals in that 20-minute span.

After the early flurry, the Cowboys adjusted and actually controlled much of the remainder of the contest.

“They played their positions better,” Crook County head coach Joel Carrillo said of his team following the contest. “They played more like they are skilled. We had better control and better attacks.”

Although the Cowboys controlled the ball for much of the second half, the damage had already been done.

Nakoda Sanders opened the scoring for the Ravens 12 minutes into the match. Then Raul Segoviano scored three more goals in an eight-minute span as Ridgeview ran out to the insurmountable lead.

The Cowboy defense stiffened and the two teams played evenly for the remainder of the first half.

Crook County had several scoring opportunities in the second half. Twice, it appeared that a Cowboy forward was fouled inside the penalty box. However, each time the official placed the ball outside the penalty area and the Cowboys received free kicks instead of penalty kicks.

“The referee said the ball was outside and whatever the ref says, that’s what goes,” Carrillo said.

Both times the Cowboys came up empty, and the Raven shutout was preserved.

With the victory, the Ravens are now 2-3-1 overall and 1-0 in Special District I, while the Cowboys fall to 1-6 overall and 0-1 in district play.

In spite of the loss, Carrillo is pleased with the progress that he is seeing from his team.

“I’m so happy how we played,” he said. “We had better precision and better passes. We still have a lot of work to do, but we are playing better and better.”

Team captain Alonzo Lopez would like to see more progress, but he agreed that the team is improving.

“I don’t think that we are progressing as much as we should be,” he said. “We need to go harder in practice because it’s off the field that really counts, but score wise we are definitely making progress.”

The Cowboys played the Summit Storm on Thursday then host Sweet Home Saturday in a 1 p.m. match.