There’s an old saying that good things come in threes.
That’s definitely the case for the South Sioux City boys soccer team, as they got goals from three different players to secure their third straight trip to the state tournament with a 3-1 win over Millard South in the A-5 district championship match Wednesday evening at the Cardinal Athletic Complex.
The Cardinals (15-4) played solid defensively for most of the night and turned in some very nice opportunities in the first 40 minutes, including a 15-yard cross-side shot by Lazaro Hernandez Sanchez that got past Millard South goalkeeper Daniel Pacheco for the first goal of the match at the 14:15 mark of the first half.
“We have been working on that the last few days, making sure we finish on those chances and it’s been paying off for Lazaro,” coach Erick Galvan said.
The Cardinals had a couple of point-blank chances later in the half that were denied by Pacheco, but he was unable to stop a pair of shots during a three-minute stretch of the second half that put the Cardinals in control.
The first, coming at the 46:01 mark, came off the foot of Anthony Aguilar-Maldonado and was followed moments later by Cesar Alfarez, who took advantage of a fortunate hop off a throw-in and blasted home SSC’s final goal of the evening for a 3-0 lead.
“We told them that if we could put another one in we’d be in a good space, and then we got that second one and we maybe got a little to comfortable and had to reset a little bit,” Galvan said.
The only hiccup in SSC’s defensive effort came in the 63rd minute when the Patriots’ Karlo Rodriguez was brought down in the box. He put the penalty kick in the lower left corner to take away the shutout from senior netminder Josue Carrasco-Morales.
This will be the third year in a row for the Cardinals at state and will be a chance to end a three-game losing streak at state. They lost in a shootout last year to Mount Michael and dropped a 2-1 result to Schuyler in 2023. They also lost to Lexington 2-0 in 2021 and haven’t won since the 2018 team claimed the Class B state title with wins over Schuyler, Gretna and Elkhorn South.
Galvan feels the team is ready to go down and make a good showing and put an end to the losing skid at Creighton University’s Morrison Stadium.
“Hopefully the third time is the charm,” he said. “It’s up to the boys and they really want to go down there and put on a show. I think at state, everything is up for grabs and whoever is there and is focused gets to move on.”
