With his team playing its sixth game in six days, East Union coach Jason Silva expected his players to run on some heavy legs against Lathrop on Wednesday.
The fatigue was apparent at the start, but Lancers wound up dominating the non-league contest 2-0 at Woodward Park.
Alexa Bretao took part in both goals, scoring one and assisting the other to Emily Pires.
“They’ve played a lot of soccer lately,” Silva said. “I was a little worried coming in tonight how they were going to respond. We weren’t able to finish (goal-scoring opportunities), but you could tell the girls were really sore moving around and stuff.
“A win’s a win, we’ll take it. It wasn’t exactly the cleanest of wins.”
East Union (4-3-1) did more than enough to win comfortably, although the Spartans (2-2) did give the Lancers a bit of a scare on their best — and only — chance to get on the score sheet. Defender Janeese Romo had a clean look on a head shot that would have tied it in the 61st minute, but the attempt went wide of the goal. That came on a perfect set-piece delivery from Ariana Garcia.
“That was the one we needed, but I’m not mad,” Lathrop coach Diana Nevarez said. “I thought they held their own, and it just prepares us playing these tough teams from the VOL (Valley Oak League). Just some little things we have to fix, but it’ll be a great season.”
Kadence Rossi otherwise had an uneventful night in front of East Union’s goal. The Lancers outshot Lathrop 16-1 and also had an overwhelming edge on corner kicks, 14-1.
Bretao got East Union out of its early funk with her long-range goal in the 30th minute after taking a centered pass from Abigail Guevara.
Bretao played the role of distributor on the Lancers’ next goal in the 69th minute. She lofted in a free kick into the box for Pires to bang it in with a header.
“I thought they stepped up defensively, but that header was clean,” Nevarez said. “I told them there’s nothing we can do about that.”
East Union had several chances to put the game away much sooner, but was denied by some emergency defending and acrobatic goalkeeping.
Romo did well to keep it scoreless with her clearance in the 24th minute after Addyson Soulier’s dangerous ball skipped past goalkeeper Morgan Emery. Bretao had an open-net touch but was blocked by Romo.
Emery finished with six saves, including a few diving parries in the second half.
“Would have been nice to score a few more of those,” Silva said. “It was one of those games where you outpossess them, but their goalkeeper came up with some good saves.”
