Sports

Arsenal u19 Boys Take Second Pre-season Second

The squad traveled to Newark over Labor Day weekend and gave a respectable show of themselves.

For the second time this summer the Arsenal under-19 boys squad took second place at a weekend soccer tournament. The 32nd Annual Newark Invitational held over Labor Day weekend was the third pre-season tournament for the Benicia team.

The tournament featured teams the u19s hadn’t faced this pre-season. The advantage for Arsenal was that their opponents weren’t familiar with Benicia’s 1-3-5-2 formation. The disadvantage for the local boys was that because so many of them are playing on their high school teams, they’ve not had many opportunities to practice together as a squad.

Despite the lack of practice the Arsenal lads came out with a strong performance against the Oakland Leopards, winning 2-1 on first half goals by wing Juan Carbonell and mid-fielder/striker Piero Dongo.

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In the second match of the day the Arsenal crew went up against league rivals the Alameda Islanders.  The Arsenal team dominated early but couldn’t find the back of the net. 

An own goal by the Islander squad in the fifteenth minute put Benicia up for good.  After that the Benicia boys knew how to find the back of the net. Carbonell and Ony Duru each scored a goal and Piero added two more.

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This set up a Sunday morning match against the Mustang club from Danville – a must-win match for Danville. During the match midfielder Andrew Maddox aggravated a hip injury, but the team was able to hang together to fill the hole in the middle of the field.

Aresenal went on to win the match 3-1 on goals from Carbonell, Duru and Dongo. Carbonell scored twice, but the first goal was disallowed after a protest by the Mustang coach.

After a penalty shoot-out to break a deadlock with the team from Oakland, the Arsenal boys were in the final against San Jose River Plate, a team that had wowed the crowds all weekend.

Arsenal had a minor defensive lapse early and that was all the San Jose boys needed as they scored an early goal and held on for a 1 to nil win over the north bay boys from Benicia. Despite the loss, Arsenal Coach Michael Aiden had nothing but high praise for his back line, Ben Stevens, Matt Judd and Matt Escalante, who played rock-solid defense, aided by some spectacular saves from goalkeeper Titus Trotty.

Also playing for Arsenal at the tournament were Ray Grengs, Tristan Ferguson, Ryan Nelson and Alex Landaverde.

The u19 squad begins league play this weekend.

Editor's Note: The 1-3-5-2 refers to 1 goalie, 3 defensemen, 5 midfielders and 2 strikers.


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