South Tahoe girls soccer shakes slow start, downs Fallon 4-0

After a sluggish first half Saturday, it didn’t take long for the South Tahoe girls soccer team to take control against Fallon. The Vikings did all their scoring in a 4-0 win over the Greenwave after halftime, remaining atop the league standings with a decisive win.

“It’s only natural to get tested after four games that were relatively easy for us,” Vikings head coach Jeremy Evans said. “Fallon always plays us tough — they always make it tough and they always play hard.”

South Tahoe (7-1-1, 5-0-1 Northern I-A) dominated possession in the opening 40 minutes, but couldn’t turn that into a goal. The Vikings had a 10-0 advantage in shots over Fallon (4-6, 1-2) but went into halftime scoreless and discontent.

“The first few minutes were OK, but then they realized they were in a fight — they started to get frustrated and we had to reset at halftime and remind them what we’re trying to do,” Evans said. “Passes and balls going off knees — we had no purpose to what we were doing.”

In the first 10 minutes of the second half, South Tahoe scored three goals to bury the Greenwave and the frustration of the first half. Three minutes after the break, Vikings midfielder Ana Garcia opened the scoring by taking a through ball from forward Jordyn Dion and blasting a close shot past Fallon’s goalkeeper.

“We are explosive and we have attacking players,” Evans said. “We’ve really been focusing a lot on the back and possessing, but the next part of the season is how do we attack — that needs to get better.”

South Tahoe midfielder Kendall Eagan made it 2-0 in the 46th minute, taking a long pass from midfielder Ashlee Schouten and dribbling by the keeper and into an empty net. Four minutes later, Eagan found the back of the net again — the senior cut inside two Fallon defenders at the left edge of the box and curled a shot into the top right corner of the goal to put STHS ahead by three goals.

“I knew she could beat her player to the inside and I told her if she did that to pull the trigger — her confidence has gone up a million times from last year,” Evans said. “She got the cherry on top there — that was a wonderful goal.”

Dion added a goal in the 60th minute to cap the scoring for South Tahoe, a goal that came off a set piece. Vikings defender Jensen Smith sent a free kick from midfield to the edge of the Fallon box where midfielder Beth Jaggard flicked the ball onto Dion, who easily finished to make it 4-0.

South Tahoe outshot the Greenwave 13-1 in the second half — including seven shots on target in the opening 20 minutes. The Vikings settled in after the break to easily dispatch Fallon and remain undefeated in league play.

“Fallon disrupted us enough to where we weren’t able to do that — we had 40 minutes to figure it out and find the gaps, and fortunately we were able to do that,” Evans said.

Fallon returned to action on Tuesday for a league match against Sparks. Results were not available at press time.

South Tahoe, meanwhile, takes on Douglas on Thursday in battle of two of the best in the state.

“They’re going to have the best set of attackers that we’re going to see all year — it’s going to really test our defense,” Evans said. “They have a lot of speed, a lot of athleticism and they’re going to make us uncomfortable.

“To me, they’re probably the top team in Northern Nevada — they’re a supertalented team and I’m glad we had this test before we play them.”