CHATSWORTH — Dalton soccer coach Matt Cheaves stressed patience to his team, and that patience was rewarded in the second half.
The Catamounts stayed undefeated with a 4-0 road victory on Tuesday night at North Murray.
Jesus Mercado scored the first and fourth goals of the night while Rolando Rosillo and Rafael Esparza each scored one of their own. Goalkeeper Raymundo Bahena recorded the shutout with four saves, but he had little work in the net as the Cats controlled the flow of the game for most of the 80 minutes.
“I felt really good about the way we possessed the ball,” Cheaves said. “That’s something we’ve worked on and talked about over the last week and a half or so. I want them to be patient and move the ball together vs. just banging it down field and racing for it.”
Dalton (3-0) scored three times in the second half and played the type of soccer Cheaves wants from his club. The Cats moved the ball through the midfield and held possession while waiting for an opportunity to show itself.
Rosillo scored in the 44th minute from a cross into the top of the 18-yard box, Esparza scored in the 52nd minute from the right side of the goal off a rebound and Mercado scored again in the 74th minute with a volley off of a throw in.
The Cats took 20 shots in the first half, with 11 being on target, but only one found the back of the net. North Murray goalkeeper Manuel Gonzalez recorded 13 saves, including multiple first-half saves that kept the Mountaineers (0-1) tied for the first 39 minutes. The Cats had a penalty kick in the 18th minute, but Gonzalez dove to his left and made the save. Another stop came in the 24th minute when Dalton went on a counter attack and had a shot less than 10 yards from the goal after a cross, but a defender deflected it.
“We had a missed penalty kick, one hit a post,” Cheaves said. “We had a lot of shots in the first half.”
In the 39th minute, Mercado received a header and scored to get Dalton on the scoreboard.
“In the first half we played decent,” North Murray coach Matt Chambers said. “In the second half we lost a little bit of our intensity and our heart and that is something we have to work on. We have to finish all the way through, and that is something we didn’t do tonight.”
The Mountaineers’ best chance came in the 43rd minute with the score still 1-0. Antonio Maldonado took the ball down the left side of the field off of a counter and fired a shot from around 30 yards out. The ball flew inches above the crossbar.
Chambers said offensive opportunities like that, along with a strong defensive performance in the first half, are positives to take away from North Murray’s first game of the season.
“We got some decent runs but we didn’t finish them, and we have to finish them,” Chambers said.
The Mountaineers tried to counter against Dalton a number of times, but the Cats defense was ready. Chambers said this was the only option because Dalton’s forwards were pressuring the Mountaineers defenders to the point where getting it out of danger was the first priority.
“We play it long and we counter attack as quick as possible,” Chambers said. “We try playing it from the back sometimes but they were all over us so we had to get it out as quick as possible.”
However, defending against a counter attack is one of the reasons Cheaves wants the Cats to play with patience and not force offense.
“I want them to take their time and make a good chance rather than just forcing one,” he said. “With forcing one, if we don’t get it then they’ve got a chance to counter attack and be right back on you. When you set up a shot, if you take your time then at least you are in position to defend in case you lose the ball.”
The Mountaineers had seven shots on goal while Dalton had 29.
• Murray County boys 2, Lakeview-Fort Oglethorope 1: The Indians (1-0) picked up a win in their first game of the 2012 season.
All three goals scored came in the first half, and the Indians defense and goalkeeper Humberto Alvarez kept their opponents at bay enough to hold a 2-1 lead through the final 40 minutes.
“(We) played pretty well overall defensively,” Murray County coach Marco Burgueno said.
Forward Colby Cummings scored the first goal to give North Murray a 1-0 lead. After Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe responded with one, midfielder Manny Bautista recorded a goal to once again put Murray County on top.
Burgueno said the action went back and forth with the Indians controlling the flow of the game for the most part.
• Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe girls 3, Murray County 0: The Lady Indians (0-1) got behind by letting up three goals in the first half but played their opponents scoreless for the next 40 minutes.
“We figured out some things,” Murray County coach Mandy Ledford said. “There were a couple different times in the second half that we almost scored and became more cohesive.”
The gap never widened more than three thanks to the effort from goalkeeper Kelsey Pack, who had more than 10 saves.
Baseball
• Coosa 10, North Murray 0: Eagles pitcher Dylan Simmons had three strikeouts over three innings of work as Coosa won in the season opener for both teams. The game was shortened after five innings because of the mercy rule.
JV soccer
• Dalton 5, North Murray 0: Luis Becerra had a hat trick and an assist, and Chris Monroig recorded the shutout in goal as the Cats improved to 2-0 on the year. Alan Lopez and Frankie Hernandez each had a goal as Dalton outshot North Murray 12-1 in the game. Kobe Perez added a pair of assists, while Antonio Martinez and Javier Hernandez each had an assist as well.
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