FREMONT – A confluence of events conspired against the Little Giant boys soccer team Tuesday afternoon.
The biggest of those factors, however, was Three Rivers Athletic Conference power St. Francis.
The Knights took an 8-0 win from the Little Giants, though coach Alex Coressel liked the effort he saw from his team, including battling to a just a 2-0 deficit through halftime.
“It was a relatively good-looking 8-0, it was not a nightmare,” Coressel said. “We held strong, just had a couple balls that we gambled on trying to stop and they happened to get past and put it in.”
Ross continued to play well despite St. Francis extending its lead to 4-0 in the second half. But midway through the second period, Ross’ busy, early-season schedule, playing five games in 11 days, caught up to the Little Giants.
“I think it finally caught up with our legs. We got tired in the last 25 minutes or so,” Coressel said. “Five games in that short of time of span, plus it was first day of school, plus the heat and humidity. It was kind of a perfect storm to wear some of our guys out in the second half.”
The Little Giants (3-2 overall, 0-1 TRAC) can finally take a breather, as they have a week off until they travel to Lima Senior next Tuesday.
In the interim, Ross is going to use the time to its advantage.
“First thing is getting healthy,” Coressel said. “We’re taking the day off (Wednesday). We have two guys with hips issues, multiple guys with knee stuff, we got a lot of bumps and bruises through five games. The second main thing is going to be offensively working to create a little bit better attack, something we can use to attack and score and not be so one-dimensional. Let those offensively guys get a lot of rips at the net and lots of repetitions.”