Van Buren beats Hot Springs 3-2 to advance
The Van Buren Pointers beat the Hot Springs boys soccer team, 3-2, on Thursday in the first round of the Class 5A state tournament to put an end to the Trojans’ season.
Van Buren (13-4-1, 11-3) moved on to play Searcy in the second round.
The Pointers were able to possess the ball and control the majority of the game. Two penalty kicks early in the game helped them take an early 3-0 lead, and Hot Springs (9-53, 9-4-3) could not catch up, coming close multiple times.
“We built a little bit of a lead there early, and Hot Springs played hard, stayed in the game, they’re very physical and played over the top and that gives us a lot of trouble,” Van Buren head coach Nathan Almond said. “They were quite a bit bigger than we were and that gave us trouble. We let them take us out of our game a little, and they were battling back. We had some pressure, had some more opportunities to score and just couldn’t finish. We held on and got a big win.”
The scoring started early as Hot Springs junior Brayan Rios got called for a penalty in the goalie box while going for a slide tackle, in a controversial call that many Hot Springs supporters voiced their disagreement with. Van Buren junior Brandon Mendez took the penalty kick and scored less than three minutes into the game.
At the 30-minute mark, Van Buren nearly scored again as the ball ricocheted off the keeper for Hot Springs, junior Emmanuel Leos, and one of the Hot Springs defenders had to step in and save the goal.
Mendez got a yellow card of his own, going for a slide tackle about 10 minutes from scoring that way. A minute later, Van Buren junior Mason Saffell scored from the top of the goalie box to put Van Buren up 2-0.
Five minutes later, Van Buren scored again on another penalty kick. One of Hot Springs’ players went for a slide tackle and received a yellow card in a very similar fashion from the first goal. Van Buren senior Luis Manuel Herrera Arriaza took the penalty kick and made it 3-0 about 20 minutes into the game. This spurred an argument from Hot Springs head coach Geoffrey Hedrick which resulted in a yellow card.
About eight minutes before halftime, Hot Springs nearly scored again as the shot bounced off the crossbar. The Trojans finally did get the ball
in the net as senior defender Juan De La Cruz got the header to go with six minutes before the break.
In the second half, Van Buren had a lot of chances to score and was very close to it on multiple occasions. Five minutes into the half, it had a header go just off the crossbar. Seconds later Leos saved a goal on a free kick, but again a Hot Springs defender had to save the ball on the ricochet and clear it out of the box.
After multiple more near goals for Van Buren, Hot Springs score again as De La Cruz came up to the action again and knocked it into the net, making it 3-2 with 25 minutes to play. Just like that, Hot Springs turned the momentum and gave themselves an opportunity to get back into it.
“We just started falling into the regular pace of how we play,” Hedrick said. “Just tried to run possession and just move the ball around and create holes in the defense.”
At the 22-minute mark, Van Buren had a goal wiped off the board for offsides as they had a breakaway runner get all the way to the goal. With 13 minutes to play, Leos had a sliding save and seconds later had another save on a corner kick from Van Buren.
With 10 minutes to play. In a congested box, Van Buren fans thought they had a goal and began cheering but the refs never called it and Hot Springs took the ball and went the other way and they nearly tied the game.
Hot Springs had another chance to tie it with three minutes left, but the shot went off the crossbar again. That was the Trojans’ last good opportunity to score. Leos added a couple more saves to his stats, but Hot Springs could not get another quality shot off in the closing minutes.
“I thought we played well enough to win,” Hedrick said. “I think there were some misfortunate things that happened in the first 10 minutes that really set the tone for the game.”
Almond said the game got tough and he was not subbing very much.
“We were staying in it and I was impressed,” he said. “We gritted it out. Our offense, we were possessing, but we weren’t finishing. But we were able to gut it out and finish the game. That’s what I was most impressed with.”