It was a bittersweet win for the Carson High boys soccer team.
The Senators upped their Sierra League record to 2-0-1 with an easy 9-0 win over Damonte Ranch Wednesday night, but lost two players " Brandon Briggs and John Nuthall " to red cards in the latter stages of the contest.
Both players will be forced to sit out Saturday's match at Galena (11 a.m.). On top of that, Brian Duran and Luis Aguiar were injured last night, and their status is uncertain, according to coach Nate Brigham.
Briggs, who played in the field while Ryan Lee played goalie, received a red card because the center referee ruled that he used an elbow on the Damonte player when the two were going up in the air after a ball. Nuthall, who was out with an injury, received his red card because he came off the bench and went into the field of play and then cursed the official.
Brigham was happy with the way his team played, but disappointed with the ejections which came with the game well in hand.
"After the game at Wooster, I told the team that I was not concerned with winning or losing tonight, but that I wanted to see energy," Brigham said. "We were slow getting to balls against Wooster. We were a step slow.
"Tonight, we hustled, we passed well and scored nine goals because we were working hard. Then, in a moment of non-thinking, we're two players down. I'm not concerned with Brandon. He went up hard. The official said he led with his elbow. It was a questionable red. John, though, came on to the field and was cussing. The players know how I feel about that."
Carson dominated both sides of the field, outshooting Damonte Ranch 36-3 unofficially. Had it not bee for Damonte goalie Thomas Beatty, the score would have been much, much worse.
Despite the dominance, especially in the first half, Carson had just a 2-0 lead to show for it, as Beatty stopped 16 of the 18 shots he faced. Many of those were from point-blank range.
Uriel Duran, who accounted for Carson's second hat trick of the season, opened the scoring in the 14th minute off an assist by Cyrill Suto, who did a tremendous job distributing the ball all night.
The Senators had several more opportunities after the first goal, but didn't score again until the 37th minute when Duran knocked in a rebound when Beatty got his hands on Adam Updegrove's shot but couldn't control it.
Duran, who scored his first varsity hat trick, said the team wasn't discouraged after the first 40 minutes.
"We were moving the ball like we wanted," Duran said. "We knew eventually we were going to put it in the net."
The Senators scored seven second-half goals on 19 shots, two by Updegrove and one each by Duran, Blake Moreland, Ian Gunn, Brady Roser and Briggs. Duran's goal came from about 30 yards out.
Updegrove scored his first goal in the 42nd minute. Duran followed with his third goal in the 45th minute, and 39 seconds later Roser took a pass from Moreland and beat Beatty for a 5-0 lead.
"I don't think we're discouraged," Brigham said. "They just kept going at it."
Brigham pointed out that the pace of play was a key to the Senators' success.
"Chances started happening because of the speed we were playing at," Brigham said.
CARSON JV 13, DAMONTE RANCH 0
The Senators moved to 3-0 in league and 5-0 overall with the easy win over the Mustangs.
Luis Camacho and Ivan Reyes scored two goals apiece, while Jaime Lopez, Jason Martinez, David Yanez, Mark Lacey, Sam Hutchison, Guillermo Alonso, Javier Barrios, Jonathon Lopez and Gustavo Gonzalez scored one each.
Hutchison also added two assists.
Pedro Chavez and Yanez shared time in goal, but Damonte Ranch got off just one shot.