Chavez’s two goals give Tigers 3-2 win over Grandview

EPHRATA – Freshman Ramon Chavez scored two goals to help push his Tiger squad over Grandview on Friday night, earning their second victory of the season in a 3-2 match against the Greyhounds.

“I’m happy to win with my team,” Chavez said. “They did a good job of putting in the work out there and executing the game plan we wanted.”

Chavez scored his first goal early in the match to give Ephrata a 1-0 lead, but the Greyhounds answered quickly to tie. Later in the 25th minute, a corner kick by junior Vinci Pichardo set up a goal by junior Llandon Ahmann that gave Ephrata a 2-1 lead at the half.

“I think today was probably our most complete game that we’ve played all season long,” Ephrata Head Coach Ivan Garay said. “We really created on both sides of the ball. We played great defense, and on offense, we got the goals we wanted. That’s big.”

Grandview tied the game just three minutes into the second half, but Chavez wasn’t finished. The freshman drove down the field at the 54th-minute mark and connected on a shot past the goalie to score his second goal of the night.

“He’s a freshman, he got the start today – he found a way to put himself in great position and score great goals,” Garay said. “That puts him on the Ephrata boys soccer talk. People are going to talk about that freshman because of this game.”

Chavez said the only thing on his mind during his drive toward the net was to put his team back on top.

“I just really wanted the goal,” Chavez said. “Went through, I thought quick, and I did exactly what I wanted to do coming into the game.”

Ephrata staved off a handful of late Grandview runs to hold on to its 3-2 lead and move to 2-4 on the season.

“Grandview’s a good team, they’re always coached well,” Garay said. “To beat Grandview today, that’s a big win for us for this season.”

The Tigers kept the pressure on the Greyhounds for most of the game, keeping the ball on Grandview’s side of the field and breaking up most Greyhound runs toward their own net.

“We are a high-pressure (team), we don’t want people possessing and dribbling on us,” Garay said. “We don’t want to give some of these talented guys in the CWAC time, they can do a lot. We’ve got to shut down and put pressure as fast as we can. That’s part of our defensive plan.”

Garay credits the win to the team shifting its formation change in the second half.

“We knew they were going to make an adjustment,” Garay said. “We know their coaches, they’re smart. We saw it, they started to try and attack us out wide and we changed our formation to a 4-4-2.”

In fact, the Tigers were not really prepared to run the 4-4-2 formation before using it in Friday’s win, Garay said.

“We hadn’t even practiced it because that’s not what we ran,” Garay said. “That’s probably what’s the most impressive thing to me. The team, on the fly, adjusted to that and was able to keep playing at the pace and style that I want them to play.”

The Tigers return to the field on Tuesday in Othello, the first of three road matches next week. Ephrata will travel to Selah on Thursday and East Valley (Spokane) on Saturday.

Ian Bivona may be reached at ibivona@columbiabasinherald.com.

Box Score

Ephrata 2-1 3

Grandview 1-1 2