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Braun & Co. too strong for Fallon

Jeremy Evans

It’s been a week since South Tahoe or Fallon has played a game. And even though his team cruised to a win, South Tahoe’s Jose Gonzalez was the more concerned coach on Tuesday following his home opener.

“Although we controlled probably 90 percent of the game, we didn’t do a good job,” Gonzalez said. “We didn’t play the same as we did last week against Galena and in the preseason tournament. We didn’t play the way we’re supposed to play.”

Despite Gonzalez’ less than stellar assessment, four different players scored and the Vikings recorded a 4-0 nonleague girls’ soccer victory at South Tahoe Middle School. Tess Braun scored the game’s first goal early in the first half and then assisted on the next two goals for South Tahoe, which scored twice in the final few minutes.



“The most frustrating part was the last 10 minutes,” said Fallon coach Lance Lattin. “Letting up at the end of the game was disappointing because a 2-0 loss to a team like this wouldn’t have been that bad.”

The Vikings (1-1) outshot the Greenwave 47-5, according to Gonzalez, but only seriously threatened Fallon’s two keepers on several occasions. In the second half, Takijah Collins made numerous saves that stopped certain goals. But in the 63rd minute, South Tahoe ended its scoring drought.



Braun chased down a ball in the corner and played it into the box for Bailey Flood, who one-timed a shot past Collins, beating her to the near post. Four minutes later, Braun nearly scored her second goal, but Collins made another diving save. However, she wasn’t as fortunate in the game’s final three minutes.

In the 77th minute, Braun chased down another ball in the corner and played it back for Bree Norton, who drilled a low shot for a 3-0 lead. A minute later, Morgan Cook ran onto a long ball, took one touch and pounded a low shot past Collins to finish the scoring.

Fallon’s best chance to score came in the 11th minute when Zoe Call played an indirect kick into the box. The ball ended up behind South Tahoe goalie Ellie Vermillion – leaving an empty net – before being cleared. The Greenwave (0-2), who was coming off a 2-0 loss to Reno last week, had a decent chance to score in the 57th minute, but Cindhy Raygoza’s shot was directed at the keeper.

“We have a pretty young team, so we think it’s going to be a month before we’re at where we want,” Lattin said. “It might be too late, but that’s our goal. Compared to the past, we have a lot of more speed. But the tradeoff is that we are inexperienced.”

South Tahoe, which lost to Galena 1-0 last week, hosts Damonte in another non-league match on Saturday at 1 p.m. It opens the Sierra Division schedule next Tuesday against Reno.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to recover from this game,” Gonzalez said. “We came out with the mentality that this was going to be an easy game. Even though we ended up winning by four goals, we can’t have that mentality.”


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