Red Demon soccer starts year with overtime win

The Dodge City High School boys soccer team opened up their season with a dramatic 3-2 overtime win on Tuesday night against Wichita North. Freshman Erick Ferreria scored to golden goal to cap off his debut.

“This is my first game, and I’m happy,” Ferreria said. “The winning goal it’s really great for the history so I like it.”

After an anti-climatic first half that saw the two teams go the to the locker room in a 0-0 deadlock, the second half provided much excitement. The scoring got started when Wichita North found the back of the net. The Demons had an immediate response however, as Jair Ponce Alderete was the beneficiary of a deflection on his shot that found its way in.

Just before the hydration break at the midway point of the second half, Wichita North struck again to make it 2-1. The Red Demons spent the next 14 minutes in search of an equalizer, in which they got in a wild sequence. After being awarded a penalty, senior Alejandro Marquez stepped up to the spot and Wichita North’s goalkeeper Larry Soto appeared to have saved the penalty. After a long discussion amongst officials and coaches from both teams, it was determined that Soto had come off his line early and the penalty needed to be re-taken.

After the delay, it was the other senior in Dodge City’s starting lineup, Austin Pinon, who calmly slid the penalty down the middle to tie the game up with 5:45 to play.

“I just had to keep a clear head, just stay in my own world” Pinon said of how he approached taking the penalty after the delay. “Just focus on what I’m going to do, not change anything that I haven’t done and do it for the team and the fans that came.

In the fourth minute of overtime, Dodge City found the winner, as Erick Ferreria scored the goal.

“He has a lot of potential,” Head Coach Raul De La Torre said of Ferreria. “We’ve worked on his confidence and really helping him adapt to the more physical players. He has a lot of ability, we just have to keep working with him and building his confidence.

The Red Demons will move onto the Titan Classic next week where they will take on Maize on Monday.