Goal Scoring Form Found
The Sacramento Knights hosted the Salinas Valley Samba on another clear, windy day, but this time around it was a much different result for the Knights. After drawing 1-1 two weeks ago with the Samba, the Knights finally started to produce the goal scoring form that has evaded them so far this season and emerged with a 4-2 win from a match that was filled with back and forth goals, five bookings, and plenty of other action.
The Knights started the match off on the right foot with strikers Arturo Barragan, Jorge Fernandez, and Eliot Ricks-Chambers providing quite a handful for the Salinas Valley Samba’s defense, breaking them down with quick combination play and well-timed runs. The Knight’s midfielders Scott Lucky, Pedro Lupercio, Ozzie Perez, and Matt Scammaca controlled the middle portion of the field and had plenty of time to pick their passes and dictate the run of play. Their movement and passing opened up various opportunities and twenty-four minutes into the game a pass over the top of the defense found Arturo Barragan in behind the defense. With the goalkeeper drawn out to close to down a shot attempt, Barragan played the ball across the face of the goal for Fernandez to give the Knights the advantage. Barragan put his name back on the score sheet five minutes before halftime when he was played short from a corner by Perez and decided to test the keeper from the corner of the penalty area with a wonderful chip shot that floated in over the helpless keeper. On the other end, defenders Jorge Lama, Didi Cordova, and Eliseo Lopez were hardly troubled as Salinas entered halftime with only three shots of which only one reached the goal for Mark Torguson to save.
Several halftime changes added a new dynamic to the Knights attack as predatory strikers Anthony Chimienti and Jimmy Frazelle came in up front and Donnie Ribaudo entered in midfield. Several later changes through the half also saw the entry of striker Patrick Nelle, midfielder Jeff Neuner, and defender Michael Elenz-Martin. The changes took some time to prove their effectiveness and in the meantime the Samba pulled a goal back when they scored from a header off a cross from a free kick in the sixty-first minute. The Knights responded with a goal of their own two minutes later when a corner found Elenz-Martin who headed towards goal and had his attempt helped in by an onrushing Neuner to make it a
3-1 lead. The Samba replied once again seven minutes later with another goal from an open shot near the top of the penalty box. But the Knights responded again as Jimmy Frazelle was taken down in the box and awarded a penalty kick that he took himself, slotting it past the keeper with ease in the bottom corner of the goal to put the game at the eventual final score of 4-2. Late events, however, left the Samba with ten men after one of their players was given his marching orders for coming after Knight’s midfielder Perez because he thought he had been fouled by Perez. A small gathering formed but tempers cooled quickly, not quick enough to prevent a yellow card to be shown to another Samba player, and the match ended with the Knights wrapping up a much need three points.
