Injury cuts Coast Union girls’ soccer match at Orcutt short

The Coast Union girls soccer squad lost a match 2-1 at Orcutt Academy on Friday Jan. 22.

The setback is the eighth in 12 games for the Broncos this season, although head coach Jack Mettier points out that most of the defeats have been by one goal and several losses occurred in the waning minutes of the match.

But Coast Union lost more than the game Friday: The team’s leading scorer, Martha Gomez, sustained a knee injury, and the coach said she might be unable to return to the field this season.

Mettier said the game was tied at halftime, 1-1, thanks to a goal scored by Gomez (with an assist by Kaelani Ribiera). However, in the second half, after Gomez was injured, the coach said, “Nobody seemed to have the heart to want to finish the game.” So Mettier huddled with Orcutt’s coach, and the game was simply halted with about 14 minutes left.

“I believe we were on a roll, and I think that we probably would have ended up tying or winning the game,” Mettier said, “but Martha’s health is more important than any game,” so the decision was made to stop play at that point.

The coach said Gomez was taken to the emergency room at Marian Regional Medical Center in Santa Maria; Mettier stayed with Gomez until her family arrived. Tests were to be taken this week, but no results were available at press time.

The next home match for Coast Union is set for 5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 29, against Midland.

Boys

The Bronco boys fell to 6-9-1 on the season with a 3-1 loss to Orcutt Academy 3-1 at Coast Union on Friday, Jan. 22.

Head coach Luis Plasencia, reflecting on the season, said his team played the games while “respecting the other teams, and after each game, they were very respectful to the other players and the referees.

“This is the first time we did not get a red card” (a penalty for over-aggressiveness). Also, Plasencia was pleased that this was the first year in his eight years of coaching “we did not lose any players because of grades.”

The lone score for the Broncos was booted in by Juan Carlos De Alba.

The season concludes Feb. 12 at McFarland.

This story was originally published January 27, 2016 at 10:54 AM with the headline "Injury cuts Coast Union girls’ soccer match at Orcutt short."