Gilroy
– Bruce Ocana started the season on a scoring tear but had
cooled off in Tri-County Athletic League games until Wednesday.
Gilroy – Bruce Ocana started the season on a scoring tear but had cooled off in Tri-County Athletic League games until Wednesday.
With Jose Armando Hernandez providing the passes, Ocana jump-started Gilroy’s offense with two first-half goals that paved the way to a 3-1 win over Palma and kept the Mustangs in first place.
“I’m getting my game back,” said Ocana, a sophomore forward. “I hadn’t been playing that well after the (first) Hollister game. I warmed up better and was able to pump my teammates up.”
The first half was vintage Gilroy (11-2-4 overall, 6-0-3 TCAL). Despite playing against a defense with five defenders, the Mustangs were constantly on the attack. Less than three minutes into the game, Jose “Tapon” Velasquez had a hard shot on goal that was just wide left. At the 13-minute mark, Randy Moya’s shot from point-blank range was stopped by the goalie.
But midway through the first half, Hernandez sent a crossing pass to the right side that Ocana chested down. In the same motion he unleashed a hard left-footed shot that found the net.
Fifteen minutes later, the same duo was at it again. Victor Garcia dumped a pass to Hernandez, who sent a pass to Ocana, who again chested it to his feet. This time, his right-footed shot beat the goalie for a 2-0 lead.
“That’s the worst possible score at halftime,” GHS co-coach Brian Hall said. “The team ahead as a tendency to get over-confident and the other team thinks that’s just two goals and they can come back. And we were sloppy in the second half.”
Nevertheless, the Mustangs made it 3-0 when Velasquez scored 17 minutes in on Humberto Pineda’s team-leading ninth assist. Pineda boomed a free kick from 50 yards that skimmed off a defender’s head. Velasquez chested it down and beat the keeper from 16 yards out. Pineda also had a goal called back because of offsides.
With 15 minutes left, the Chieftains (10-6, 4-5) scored off a corner kick and header but it wasn’t nearly enough to keep Gilroy from stretching its unbeaten streak to nine games.
“We’ve improved a lot but there are still other things we can improve on,” Hernandez said. “We still have a lot of hard work ahead of us.”
The Mustangs are at TCAL winless North Salinas on Friday before finishing next week against the top two teams in the league, Salinas and Central Coast Section No. 3-ranked Alisal.
