South Sioux City dominated much of Thursday’s River Cities Conference boys soccer championship match against Roncalli.
But it was the white-hot Crimson Pride, winners of seven straight games, who made the most of their opportunities, avenging an earlier loss to South Sioux City with a 2-0 win Thursday in the River Cities Conference championship match at the Cardinal Complex.
South Sioux City used its pressure up front to control much of the match and outshoot the visitors 11-4, but when opportunity came calling for Roncalli, they were able to take advantage.
“They were a good team,” coach Erick Galvan said of the 14-2 Pride, whose last loss was a 3-2 decision on the same field on April 7. “They defended with a lot of players and it’s hard to win against teams that play seven in the back.”
South Sioux had a couple of good chances midway through the first half.
In the 28th minute, Diego Montes’ 18-yarder from the left side was deflected by Roncalli goalie James Buczkowski and saved the follow-up rebound. Two minutes later, Xzavian Ponce had a good look from the right side of center just outside the penalty box that was deflected by Buczkowski.
Roncalli broke the ice in the 32nd minute. A long clearing kick by Buczkowski got away from a South Sioux defender, and Will Preston beat SSC netminder Angel Olivarez to the ball about 10 yards away, poking the free ball home for a 1-0 halftime advantage.
“It came off a long kick,” Galvan said. “One of their forwards headed it and our defender missed the ball and it went through, and (Preston) got 1-V-1 with the keeper and ran around him and scored it.”
Roncalli got an insurance goal 12 minutes into the second half when Jordan Martinez poked one past Olivares in the box to make it 2-0.
South Sioux (12-4) did its best to make it a close match. They had plenty of opportunities in the Roncalli box, but Buczkowski met the challenge each time, finishing with 11 saves.
“There is no doubt who controlled the game, but it comes down to who scores the most and it just wasn’t our day,” Galvan said. “We’ve got our first district game coming up on Monday and we’ll just pick up from there.”
