Missed scoring chances proved to be Henley girls soccer’s undoing in their round of 16 matchup with Gladstone Tuesday night. If not for a moment of brilliance in front of each goal during the first half, the same could have easily been said for the Henley boys.
The top-seeded Hornets nearly went down 1-0 in the 12th minute after sending two shots wide of the post in the first 10 minutes. The Gladiators, who upset Klamath Union 2-1 in the play-in round last Saturday for just their fourth win of the season, created a shot off a corner kick that ricocheted off the bottom of the crossbar and bounced out.
Henley took the lead in the 28th minute after being awarded a free kick at the top of the penalty area. Rather than trying to score on the free kick–something he’s done successfully over the course of the season–Layne Worrell opted for a set piece, sending a pass around the left side of the wall toward Max Tobiasson, who beat his defender to the ball and scored.
“Normally Layne would shoot it up in the upper corners of the goal,” Henley head coach Lupe Gonzales said. “As tall as [Gladstone’s] keeper is, we had to try something different.”
The Hornets had a few chances to add to their lead over the next 10 minutes but couldn’t convert. Then, with less than a minute remaining in the first half, Gladstone sent a high shot from the left side toward freshman goalkeeper Ivan Garcia. Garcia was able to tip the ball away, but it fell into the penalty area, resulting in a point-blank shot for the Gladiators.
Garcia stopped it.
“I got pretty scared,” Garcia said. “I thought he was going to smash it in, but I got there in time and he hesitated, so I was like ‘it’s my time’, and I went up and I saved it.”
Garcia’s heroics allowed his team to take their 1-0 lead into halftime, where Gonzales tried to impart to his players that one goal wasn’t enough.
“Teams like [Gladstone], the longer you leave them on, the more confident they get,” Gonzales said. “[In] the second half, they were gaining confidence.”
The Gladiators’ increased confidence was evident in the final 40 minutes; they were more physical with Henley, making it difficult for the Hornets to generate scoring opportunities. They also kept Henley’s back line under much more pressure than in the first half, even while playing down a man following a red card in the 70th minute.
Although the Hornets held on for a 1-0 win to advance to their third straight state quarterfinals, both Gonzales and his players expressed dissatisfaction with the team’s performance.
“We did not play our best for sure,” Tobiasson said.
“I just don’t think that we possessed very well,” Gonzales said. “We were trying to score on one or two plays rather than what we normally do.”
Gonzales said his team needs to do a better job of maintaining their composure during physical games like Wednesday’s.
“I think that was the biggest thing,” Gonzales said. “We let those guys get to us.”
Henley hosts No. 9 seed North Marion, which upset No. 8 seed Madras 1-0 Wednesday night, on Saturday.
“North Marion is incredible,” Gonzales said. “They are so well-coached. They’re very fast. They’re very opportunistic. I think their attack is very similar to ours.”
While Gonzales identified several issues with Henley’s performance against Gladstone, he highlighted blown scoring chances as being especially important to fix in order for the Hornets to beat North Marion and keep advancing.
“We had some clear opportunities that we didn’t finish,” Gonzales said.
“Anything that’s going to happen now in the playoffs, it’s going to be who takes care of those opportunities.”
