Ricebirds get win in scrimmage
By KRIS BAGLEY sports@leader-news.com

L-N Photo by Kris Bagley Happy Feet Gabe Lara scored the second goal of El Campo's scrimmage with Brazosport.

The Ricebirds made a great start to their new season, claiming a win in their first soccer match this year.

El Campo hosted Brazosport Tuesday and finished with a 2-0 win. Though the victory will not officially count in the record, the 'Birds gained a great deal of confidence to start the season successfully.

"Going into the match, I talked to the coach from Brazosport and he was saying that he felt real good about this team that he has," Dewayne Arkadie, head coach of the Ricebirds, said. "I told him that I don't get as much time with my guys. I get them right after Christmas, so I don't know what to expect. I didn't know what to expect going into the game. I told them before the game, the one thing I wanted them to do was to play hard. I said, 'I don't care what the results are, I just want you to play hard and play together.'

"They played together, they played hard and to come out with the win was big for the team's morale. They see that by moving the ball, we can take a lot of shots and get a lot of penetration. They did a good job of trapping on defense, getting two guys to the ball and taking the ball off of their feet."

The match started off well for El Campo. Almost as soon as the game began, the Ricebirds had the ball in Exporter territory. El Campo's offense appeared deceptively quick as they glided through Brazosport's defense.

"The strength wasn't speed advantage, but it was the speed of play," Arkadie said. "It was passing the ball quick, moving it around and keeping them off balance and making their defense do a lot of shifting. By them doing a lot of shifting, we created openness and by creating openness we penetrated up the field."

The first goal of the game came with 34:49 left in the first half by Kris Mireles, a sophomore midfielder for the 'Birds.

After El Campo took the lead, Brazosport's goalie seemed uneasy. The 'Birds took several shots on goal throughout the game. Arkadie estimated a total of 17 attempts with nine coming in the first half.

"At halftime, I told them, 'The goalie is shaking,'" the coach said. "The first half, we took a lot of shots. We didn't put every shot on target. We had some go off, but by taking so many shots, I saw that he was a little nervous. I told them at halftime, 'The goalie is shaking and we've got the wind against us now, so we're going to have to take shots just to keep him on his toes.'"

El Campo took advantage of the shaken-up goalie on a long-distance shot in the second half.

Junior Gabe Lara stole the ball from a Brazosport defender and flipped around to look at the goal. He booted a 40-yard shot just over the goalie's head and gave his team a 2-0 lead 13 minutes into the second half.

"With the wind against us and him taking a shot that far, I never thought he would have done it," Arkadie said. "The goalie was just backing up and it shot right over him."

El Campo made an official start to the season Friday night against Bloomington in the first match of the year. Still, Arkadie said he was excited to get the win over Brazosport in the Ricebirds' scrimmage.

"We kept attacking," Arkadie said. "We took the majority of the shots in the game, we controlled the midfield and we moved the ball well. We took a lot of shots, some of them were off target and some were on target that (the goalie) did save.

"By them doing all of these things, executing like we practiced them, it was big. They saw the advantages to the formation that we're running. Now we just have to build on it. One thing that I have to do is make sure they don't get overconfident just with this one. I told them we have a long way to go. We can't just sit on this one victory."