Siloam Springs boys soccer coach Jason Bowen wishes he could bottle up the Panthers' performance against Springdale Har-Ber on Friday and use it again later this season.
The Panthers played gave an inspired effort and produced their best game of the year in a 2-1 7A/6A-West Conference victory against the Wildcats at Glenn W. Black Stadium.
"That's the team we know we are," Bowen said. "Finally, after a couple of big, heartbreaking losses, we finally knocked one off. That's the team we can be right there. I'm real pleased with them."
Senior forward Alejandro Dominguez' goal with 20 minutes, 50 seconds remaining in the game proved to be the game-winner for the Panthers (9-6-1, 1-3), who won their first conference match. The shot came from 25 yards out.
"We were just getting tired of losing," said Dominguez, who scored his team-leading 20th goal of the season. We knew we were better than what we were playing. So we came out and gave it our all. As you can see, when we play as a team, everything works out. We've just got to keep it up as a team and play our best."
James Pollard scored Siloam Springs' first goal on a header with 9:38 left in the first half off a Daniel Sierra assist. Har-Ber (9-5-1, 2-1) answered just 24 seconds later with the equalizer on a goal from Raul Umana.
Har-Ber head coach Nelson Medina said the loss was disappointing.
"It was one of those things where we didn't play well," Medina said. "Take nothing away from Siloam Springs. They played an excellent game. We knew it would be a good battle with them because they're a good program. They scored when they needed to. We made some key mistakes that cost us."
Lucas Nitz recorded eight saves in goal for Siloam Springs.
"Nitz played great tonight," Bowen said. "He's had a couple of letdowns in earlier games, but tonight he played great."
Bowen said the Panthers committed to switch to a 3-5-2 formation later in the week, which helped in Friday's win.
The Panthers had been outscored 12-3 in their three previous league games -- a 2-0 loss at Springdale, a 6-2 loss at Bentonville and a 4-1 loss at home against Fayetteville on Tuesday.
"I'm proud of them because they didn't shut it down," Bowen said. "After you get your butt kicked a couple of times in a row, it would be easy for kids to lay down and quit on you. They bought into it. They didn't quit. We got a great victory on senior night for them."
Fayetteville 4, Siloam Springs 1
Fayetteville's Nicholas Kley scored all three of his goals in the first half as the Bulldogs (8-3, 3-0) jumped on the Panthers early in the first half.
Kley scored just more than five minutes into the game and added another goal nearly 10 minutes later. His third goal with 17:44 remaining gave Fayetteville a 3-0 lead.
Alejandro Dominguez pulled Siloam Springs within 3-1 with a goal in the second half, but Fayetteville quickly answered with a goal from Jan Dhoore with 19:45 left in the game.
Sports on 04/20/2014