Marble Falls boys soccer stays unbeaten in district, ties San Antonio Cornerstone
CAPTION: Marble Falls’ Drake Taylor and the Mustangs earn an important sweep against Lago Vista to stay unbeaten in District 25-4A play. Photo by Shaunna Marcum/Mixed Media Artist Photographer Designer at ShaunnaLisa, Cliffhanger Loop Productions
The Marble Falls High School boys soccer team and San Antonio Cornerstone ended their contest in a 2-2 tie Feb. 20 after the Mustangs beat Lago Vista 7-0 Feb. 16 in District 25-4A play.
Against Cornerstone, the Mustangs’ (14-2-1, 6-0) goals were by Garrett Goggans. Kash Bussaraporn got an assist.
“Cornerstone is a good team,” Marble Falls head coach Rick Hoover said. “I was nervous about playing them.”
He said Cornerstone administrators are “trying to transition into an IMG Academy,” which is a preparatory boarding school and sports training destination in Bradenton, Fla., according to reports.
“They have this massive campus in San Antonio,” Hoover added.
Inches, literally, were the difference between a win and tie. With 10 seconds remaining in the match, Mustang Esteban Dominguez “hits this great shot” at the goal,” Hoover said, and “hits the inside of the post and the ball bounces out. It’s a matter of inches, and we almost have a dramatic win.”
He said the biggest beneficiaries were the fans.
“There were two good teams,” he added. “Cornerstone was really good offensively and really good defensively. They held us to two goals. We’d been scoring quite a bit, and they were able to score two on us. I was a little disappointed we didn’t take advantage of a couple of opportunities. But that’s the game of soccer.”
The Mustangs seized control of the match against Lago Vista early thanks to Goggans, who had 4 goals and an assist. Diego Mata added a goal and an assist. Joaquin Aguilar and Bussaraporn also scored a goal. Dominguez recorded 4 assists.
Hoover said better days are coming for the Vikings.
“They’re a team that’s building offensively and defensively,” he said. “We did a good job. They played hard. They never gave up. They never stopped.”
The reason he scheduled Cornerstone was to get a match in before taking a bye Friday, Feb. 23, in district play. The Lady Mustangs traveled to play at Georgetown Gateway Feb. 20 and lost to 2-1. Gateway doesn’t have a boys soccer program. Hoover didn’t want to take the entire week off when he knows the Mustangs still have three district matches left.
“I tried to schedule, when we have these open dates, the highest level of competition that we could find,” the coach said. “It exposed us to a couple of things we need to work on. It was 80 minutes of hard fought soccer. We’re battle tested. You might get a false sense of security.”
Marble Falls travels to play at Austin Achieve Tuesday, Feb. 27, with the junior varsity taking the field at 5:30 p.m. and the varsity at 7 p.m.
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