After a scoreless first half Saturday at River Islands Sports Complex, East Union snuck in a goal early in the second half to down Sierra 1-0 in a Valley Oak League boys soccer game that had both teams’ rosters far from full strength.

Corwin Snyder fired a cross for East Union (7-1-1 VOL, 10-5-7 overall), and the Timberwolves (6-2, 12-3-1) headed the cross out right to Angel Guzman, who jumped on in and got it into the net for the game’s only goal.

“He (Snyder) deflected the ball to me and I simply kicked it in,” Guzman said. “I just reacted. It was a split-second decision.”

Oscar Zavala led the Lancers back line.

“We held our ground,” Zavala said. “But at times we could have done better.”

With eight Timberwolves missing, East Union coach Ronnie Green told his club to be prepared for anyone.

“Today, we were both short players due to club (commitments),” Green said. “But I knew Sierra was going to come out playing hard.

“I told the boys that no matter who was on the field we were going to have to play them all the same. Sierra played us tough for what they had today. Happy to get away with the 1-0 win. We’ll take it. We need it.”

Sierra coach Joe Pires had to pull from his junior varsity squad to field a team.

“It was a good game,” Pires said. “We were down a bunch of our starters, eight, and we had to pick up five players from the JV to have the numbers to play and we put on a pretty good fight with a 0-0 first half. We had a breakdown early in the second half and they got the goal. Give it to them, they scored a goal and we did not.

“It was a fairly even game both ways, but I am really proud of the way we played, especially with a whole bunch of underclassmen playing up in a game like this.”

The Timberwolves host Oakdale on Wednesday, and on Friday the Lancers host Weston Ranch with both games at 6:45 p.m.