By Aloha Alisasis
The John F. Kennedy Islanders boys soccer team took their first step in defending the ISA Boys Soccer League title Monday afternoon at their home field with a strong 12-1 outcome over the Tiyan Titans in the season opener.
Freshman Landen Cruz and junior Cj Sablan came up with huge hat tricks as the more aggressive Islanders continuously broke down the Titans from beginning to the end.
FIRST HALF
Both the Islanders and Titans knew what they wanted from the start of the game, which was to win the season-opening game.
Islanders Nehemiah Nauta, Alesana Jorlang, Alijah Guerrero and Christian Hautea had their share of scoring near shots that foreshadowed things to come. It was Jorlang who scored the first goal in the 6th minute with a shot past Tiyan goalkeeper Kanen Blas, on their way to a commanding 7-0 halftime lead.
Titans Atreu Tapao, Ansley Cruz and Nicholas Lujan-Baza had a couple of shots on goal, but were unable to get it into the net.
SECOND HALF
The Titans came back in the second half stronger but the Islanders came back with an even more motivated mindset to win their first game of the season.
“We kept our passion, kept fighting, and tried to win every ball,” said Sablan.
Titan Dane Santos had his anticipation to score a goal for the team but was unable to. However, Blake Flory made the first shot of the season for the team a few minutes before the whistle blew and ended the game.
Both Sablan and Cruz kept trying for more shots, but Tiyan held their tight defensive line to keep the ball away from their substitute keeper, Zaiah Aguon.
Cruz had one goal in mind, which is to score numerous times and finish the game strong.
“It’s a good feeling to win the first game of the season, but we know that we could have done better, like the defensive mistakes we could fix in practice and we overall just work harder. We played good as a team, we scored a lot of goals but we just need to finish more,” said the freshman Landen after the outcome of the game.
“Taking the first win, it’s definitely big for us. It boosted our confidence, but there’s still more to come and the season is not done yet,” said junior Sablan.
JFK scorers
Cj Sablan- 3 goals
Landen Cruz-3
Nehemiah Nauta-2
Alesana Jorlang-2
Alijah Guerrero-1
Christian Hautea-1
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