El Capitan thumps short-handed Los Banos in girls soccer

The offside trap can be one of soccer’s more frustrating defensive schemes.

A well-run trap can negate the speed of opponents and use their aggression against them. But doing it well requires precision. The back line must be completely on the same page to time things just right. The Los Banos High School girls soccer team experienced the perils of that lack of cohesion Monday afternoon.

Coach Rachel Douglas’ squad was missing five players for a variety of reasons and forced to play a number of people out of position. Host El Capitan took full advantage of the disorganization, converting on four breakaways in the opening half. The Tigers changed things up and were much more sound defensively after the break, but the damage was already done as the Gauchos cruised to an 8-0 victory.

After opening the season winless in its first seven contests against some pretty brutal competition, El Capitan enjoyed a nice change of pace by winning its Western Athletic Conference opener.

“We scheduled ourselves to play in a couple tournaments and figured we’d get a bunch of game experience, and then we opened the season with St. Mary’s, Enochs and Pitman,” Gauchos coach Christina Schiewek said. “You want to play good competition to get the most out of a young team like this, but at the same time seven straight losses can be a little demoralizing.

“Getting a win, with a performance like this today, was a nice boost.”

After finding the back of the net just once in its first seven contests, El Capitan (1-7, 1-0 WAC) scored three times in the opening 10 minutes.

Bryna Vega started the scoring in the fourth minute, winning a ball at midfield and then just sprinting past the Los Banos (0-7-1) back line for a breakaway.

Before the Gauchos’ bench had time to finish celebrating that goal, El Capitan struck again. Emily Hernandez caught the back line flat and sprinted on to a through ball for a breakaway goal. Hernandez doubled her tally in the ninth minute, winning the ball off a Tigers defender and sliding the ball under Los Banos goalkeeper Bailey Allen (12 saves) to make it 3-0.

The goals kept coming. Sierra Carillo, Vega and Isabella Spiva scored to make it 6-0 Gauchos at intermission.

“A lot of things were going against us in this game,” Douglas said. “We were missing most of our subs and a couple starters. Then one of our girls sprains her ankle 10 minutes in and we’re down to just 11 players. It’s tough. We had bodies out of position all over the place. We switched some girls around at halftime and it made a difference.

“This was our seventh game in three days. Then you throw in no subs and playing into the wind, and we were definitely tired.”

El Capitan emptied most of its bench in the second half, but Vega returned to complete her hat trick. Carillo later tallied a second goal to make it 8-0.

This story was originally published March 14, 2016 at 9:06 PM with the headline "El Capitan thumps short-handed Los Banos in girls soccer."