Moses Lake falls in physical contest

MOSES LAKE — Despite fighting back from two two-goal deficits, the Moses Lake Chiefs soccer team fell to visiting Kennewick 3-2 in a physical encounter last night at Lions Field.

Kennewick jumped out on top in the game’s first two minutes off of 2-on-1 breakaway to beat Chiefs’ keeper Aaron Molina for the early 1-0 lead.

The Chiefs (1-3, 0-2) then got their bearings and proceeded to control the game’s tempo for the next 25 minutes and created a few solid scoring opportunities.

Adolfo Cortez took aim from about 10 yards out on a one-on-one with the Kennewick keeper but his attempt was parried away.

Then in the 16th and 18th minute Alex Alcantar found himself with two potential strike chances but missed on a kick and a header, which kept the Chiefs off the board.

“You got to take the chances when you get them,” Chiefs coach Bill Bertram said. “You’ve got to know when to dribble and when to shoot. You’ve got to finish and that’s what the boys are struggling with right now.”

Kennewick began to assert itself toward the end of the first half as Moses Lake failed to clear the ball consistently out of its own half of the field and the Lions led 1-0 at intermission.

Moses Lake then fell behind 2-0 in the 44th minute when the Lions scored on a high shot past Molina when Moses Lake failed to score off of a golden opportunity in front of the Lions goal and the visitors put one in off the immediate counter.

“You can’t worry about the scores and look at the overall picture,” Bertram said. “We got his on the counter and we had some of our defenders playing up to tall and we had some guys who couldn’t keep up with them. Give them credit for making a great shot.”

Then play began to get chippy as both teams got after it physically and both sidelines showed some concerns over the officiating.

Kennewick took exception when they were called for a foul in the 47th minute for taking down a player in the attacking area and Chief Devin Petersen’s subsequent penalty kick brought Moses Lake back within 2-1.

Immediately after, Kennewick appeared to have answered when a perfectly struck indirect kick curled into the Moses Lake goal before hitting another player discounting the score.

Both teams battled back-and-forth until Kennewick made it 3-1 in the 60th minute off of a mishandled shot in the penalty area and the Lions picked up the loose ball and put it away.

Still Moses Lake wouldn’t give up and a minute later Petersen scored again off of a Derek Gonzales indirect kick that banged off the post and right to his teammate who nudged it home, making the score 3-2.

“That’s the trademark of Moses Lake, we don’t give up,” Bertram said. “We lost games because of a lack of skill or technique but not because of a lack of effort.”

For the next twenty minutes both teams had their opportunities to score but neither team could make it happen and Moses Lake dropped their second straight decision.

Moses Lake had 16 shots to Kennewick’s 12 and Bertram said the unofficial possession time favored the Chiefs 50 minutes to 30.