Carrying a team of nine freshmen and only three seniors, Miguel Orduna was aware of the challenges facing the Greenwave.
“For the most part, the biggest bump we have is we just need to get more games under our belt,” the second-year boys soccer coach said. “We have a very young team. They’re starting to play together and doing some good things.”
Still searching for its first win, Fallon dropped contests against North Tahoe, 7-0, last Friday on the road and Sparks, 10-1, on Tuesday at home. The Greenwave (0-6) visits Elko County this weekend to face Spring Creek and Elko.
“The North Tahoe game was really well played as far as our side,” Orduna said. “We’re working on our goalies; they’re first-time goalies. It’s new to them. They’re doing an awesome job. We’ve just got to fine-tune our style we want to play, control and possess the ball more. They’re coming a long ways. It’s a long season and there’s plenty room of improvement.”
Goalies Erik Orozco and Caden Bowman are two of the nine freshmen competing for Fallon, which hasn’t fielded a junior varsity team in several years. Cesar Molina, who scored the team’s only goal against Sparks and one against Elko earlier in the season, is also a freshman.
“Once we knew what we had, we were preparing our kids to deal with the physicality and the speed,” Orduna said. “All of our freshmen were pretty surprised how fast varsity soccer was. We took that as a good learning experience. We’re working hard every day to get better.”
It makes Orduna’s job easier, though, to have three seniors and a junior to help guide the young team through the bumps and bruises. Seniors Nick Sanchez, Nick Kulick and Chase Sanchez and junior Luis Orozco have stepped up in the leadership department.
“They’re going to be hard losses for us because they have a lot of experience,” Orduna said of the seniors. “They’re taking a great role because they’re teaching these guys the expectations and everything else.”
As Fallon dives deeper into the league season, searching for that first win, Orduna wants to see continued improvement and is a firm believer that Fallon will be competitive before the end of the season. He can’t help but get excited for the future, though.
“I’m very excited to be able to work with them for the next couple of years,” Orduna said. “As young as they are and as long keep playing together in the offseason, this team’s going to be a good powerhouse to compete against. We just got to deal with punches right now. All these kids just want to keep getting better.”