GREENSBORO, N.C. — Having already been eliminated from contention for a spot in today’s championship game, the Columbus Express 08 Boys Orange had only pride to play for in Saturday’s final game of pool play at the US Youth Soccer National Championships Presidents Cup.
The Express Orange displayed that pride in batting Antelope Valley FC boys 2008 from southern California to the very end before dropping a 3-1 decision.
“We could have said, ‘Hey, we’re out of it,’ but the kids gave everything they had,” Express Orange coach Sam LaVelle said. “They knew this was a big stage, and they played really hard.”
Antelope Valley scored midway through the first half and went up 2-0 with a goal in the first five minutes of the second half. Julian Jackson put Express Orange on the board with about two minutes left in the game to cut the lead to 2-1.
Express Orange then almost tied the game when Angel Espejel put one off the crossbar. Antelope Valley scored with about 30 seconds remaining to put it away.
“We had a couple other decent opportunities,” LaVelle said. “We had some chances here and there, nothing that I look back on and said, ‘Man, we probably should have scored that.’ The team we played was really good.”
Express Orange lost all three of its games in the 14U tournament by 3-1 scores. They fell to 08B Pre MLS NEXT from Pittsburgh on Thursday and Aztecas FC 08B from North Texas on Friday.
“We played well,” LaVelle said. “We played within ourselves. We didn’t stray away from our game plan. I was happy with the way we came out and played this whole tournament.”
Antelope Valley and Aztecas will play for the title at 10:45 a.m. today.
