COD Men’s Soccer grabs hard fought tie with Wolverines, 2-2

COD (2-4-4; 2-2-2) scored early and built on that lead, then held on to a tie with the San Bernardino Valley Wolverines (6-5-1; 4-1-1), 2-2.

The Roadrunners would get on the board first, as they scored on a penalty kick in the 11th minute, converted by freshman midfielder Arturo Silva (Thermal Desert Mirage) to give Desert the early 1-0 lead.

That lead would hold though the halftime whistle as freshman starting goal keeper Jorge Cañedo (Palm Springs H.S.) kept his clean sheet, even though he faced 13 shots and six corner kicks, all while making seven saves.

By halftime three yellow cards had been issued and foretold of upcoming events in the second half. In the 47th minute San Bernardino Valley was stuck a man down and three minutes later thought they had tied the game, as the ball looked to have snuck into the upper right corner of the goal. The Wolverines bench exploded in cheers, but the center official waved off the shot attempt indicated that no goal had been scored.

In the 57th minute, Desert took a two goal lead on a ground level cross pass from freshman defenseman Christian David Herrera (La Quinta H.S.) to freshman midfielder Marco Aguilar (Rancho Mirage H.S.) who skipped a shot past the Wolverines keeper into the bottom right hand corner of the net.

The shots were hot and heavy as both teams aimed to get some distance between each other and keeping both keepers very busy. The Roadrunners ended up with 22 total shots, split evenly amongst the first and second halves and San Bernardino Valley took 28 total shots, with 15 in the second half alone. Desert connected on 11 shots on goal and the Wolverines had 13 shots on goal on the afternoon.

At the 75th minute, the Wolverines put a shot on net that just missed the outstretched fingers of the Desert keeper, getting San Bernardino Valley to within one, 2-1. And nine minutes later, in the 84th minute, the Wolverines equalized on a crazy goal tying the game at 2-2.

With all of the cards and injury substitutions, the officials called for a five minute extra period, which turned into over eight minutes. Both teams fought for possession and played brilliantly, then about six minutes in, Desert was sent to ten men, leaving the home side to play the rest of the remaining injury time in a 10-on-10 torrent. Even with all of the events within the game, it was a fantastic contest.

The next home game for the Roadrunners is October 10th against Palomar at 1 p.m.

Photo by Rodrigo Pena (rigopena@yahoo.com)
Information, Photos & Story provided by COD Sports Information.