CHICO — Cameron Powell may be a new addition to the Pleasant Valley High boys soccer team, but he’s already fitting right in.
Powell sent a slicing goal from 25 yards out to the lower corner of the net to give the Vikings a 2-0 lead in the 28th minute. Pleasant Valley would cruise to a 4-0 victory over University Prep of Redding Thursday night at Asgard Yard.
“I knew the defender was going to bite to the left so I hit it with the outside of my right foot and it went in,” Powell said. “We knew we were evenly matched with this team. We played really well today.”
Powell, a sophomore originally from Visalia, moved to Chico earlier in the year. He participated in the Vikings’ summer program and has been contributing early in the season.
“He’s been such a good player. He’s grown so much since the summer. He’s a fighter with energy,” said Vikings head coach Nick Lopez. “He’ll make plays and get our team excited. You’ll put him in and it will electrify things a little bit.”
The Vikings avenged a 1-0 defeat to U-Prep on Dec. 6 in Redding. The setback happened to be a turning point for the Vikings.
“We have definitely gotten a few kids, but we’ve grown a lot as a team. Especially after the loss to U-Prep we learned a lot about ourselves,” Lopez said. “There’s a lot of things we needed to work on in terms of our mentality and attitude. I felt like we kind of threw in the towel a little bit early in that game.”
Missing from that Dec. 6 contest was standout Dante Jackson as the senior striker was in the midst of a playoff run with the PV football team. Jackson provided two goals in the win Thursday.
He had the first goal of the night after he drilled a ball to the right corner of the net in the 13th minute.
The Panthers nearly tied it up shortly after when Wyatt Miles curved a shot toward the post but ricocheted off the crossbar.
PV managed to maintain control and continue to add on. After Powell’s goal, the Vikings went into halftime with a 2-0 advantage.
“We came out and we wanted to control the tempo right away,” Lopez said. “We concentrated on that a lot.”
Jackson then made it a 3-0 lead in the second half when his shot flew by the Panthers’ keeper as he crashed in on the ball.
“When you lose to a team once, you don’t want to do it again,” Jackson said.
The Vikings tagged on one more goal when Alexander Parks fired a shot off an assist from Zacharias Willingham in the 71st minute to make it 4-0.
PV (5-4) will compete in the NorCal Cup in Redding beginning on Friday.
“We need to stay focused and manage our priorities,” Powell said. “Every game we need to treat it like it’s our final game.”
The score
Pleasant Valley 4, University Prep 0
Up next: Pleasant Valley at NorCal Cup (Redding), Friday.
2019-12-20 06:32:29Z
http://www.chicoer.com/pleasant-valley-boys-soccer-rolls-by-university-prep
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