craigdailypress.com

In its first year as an organized team, the Delta County soccer squad has made its presence known in the Western Slope League. With a 3-2 win against Moffat County Tuesday, the Eagles completed a two-game sweep of the Bulldogs and moved into third place in the league.

"It is a team made up of four schools with 52 kids out for the program," Bulldog coach Mick Havrilla said. "They've had soccer in the area for a while, they just were unable to organize a team until this year and they're good."

The Bulldogs fell behind early in the game when the Eagles scored in the third minute. Havrilla said his team looked sluggish after a four-hour bus trip.

"We had a good warm-up but they were missing a little bit the first couple of minutes," he said.

The Bulldogs shook off the bus-ride blues two minutes later when Alberto Olivares scored his first varsity goal to tie the game 1-1.

Just before half time, Delta County retook the lead and went into the break with a 2-1 lead.

In the first game against Delta County the Bulldogs were down 3-2 at half. Although they had 15 more shots on goal than the Eagles in the second half, they lost the game 5-3. Havrilla talked to his team about increasing its effort in the second half to not let the same thing happen, but Delta County wasn't going to be beaten.

The Eagles scored again 10 minutes into the half to take a two-goal lead.

"At the beginning of the second half, we put too much pressure on ourselves to score," Havrilla said. "Again we outshot our opponents but couldn't capitalize."

The Bulldogs did find the net again with eight minutes remaining in the game on a goal from Derrick Thompson. Time ran out on the Bulldogs in their third one-goal loss in the league.

"The kids were pretty frustrated with the loss," Havrilla said. "I think they are tired of being close but not winning."

While he initially had his doubts about the Delta County team, they proved to Havrilla that they are for real.

"I think we underestimated them," he said. "They are a team that is capable of doing well in this league."

The Bulldogs are now 2-5 in league play, sitting above only winless Palisade in the standings. Their next game is against Battle Mountain, which is 3-2 in the league and one win behind Delta County in the standings. That game is at 11 a.m. Saturday at Loudy-Simpson field.

"We've proven we're good enough to win against anybody in the league," Havrilla said. "The wins just haven't come our way."

David Pressgrove can be reached at 824-7031 or dpressgrove@craigdailypress.com

Western Slope League Standings

RIFLE 5-1-0 0.833 STEAMBOAT 4-1-0 0.800

DELTA 4-2-0 0.667

BATTLE MTN 3-2-0 0.600

GLENWOOD 2-4-0 0.333

MOFFAT 2-5-0 0.286

PALISADE 0-5-0 0.000 0-7-0 0.000