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By Ben McCarty
News staff writer
May 7, 2008
The Hood River Valley Eagles’ hopes of beating Oregon Episcopal
School will have to wait until next year — or at least until the
playoffs.
Eli Camero put the HRV offense on his back with four second-half
goals, but it was not enough to overcome a stifling effort by
the Aardvark defense in the first half and some timely goals by
the OES offense in the second half as the Eagles fell 10-6 on
Monday.
“If a few of the little things change then we come out on top of
it,” Hood River Valley coach Mac Jackson said. “We very easily
could have come out on the upper end.”
After falling behind 5-1 in the first half, the Eagles got
within two goals several times in the second half, including an
8-6 margin on Camero’s final goal of the game with just under
two minutes to play, but a pair of quick OES goals dashed the
Eagles’ hopes for beating the state powerhouse for the first
time in the team’s history.
Even though they lost, the win represented a step up for the
Eagles from a 19-7 thrashing at the hands of Lincoln last week,
and an improvement from their first meeting with the Aardvarks
this season, in which the Eagles lost 11-5 at OES.
“We were actually in this game,” Jackson said.
After struggling to find any way to crack through a seemingly
impenetrable OES defense in the first half, the Eagles turned
Camero loose in the second half. He followed a Jacob Bohince
goal midway through the third quarter with a run through the
heart of OES defense which resulted in a goal to cut the gap to
5-3.
However, after being rocked back on their heels to start the
half, the Aardvarks regrouped and matched Camero almost
goal-for-goal the rest of the way to keep HRV from getting any
closer than two scores.
But that did not mean that the Eagles were
prepared to go quietly.
Camero’s final three goals left OES trying to find any way to
stop or contain him on defense. On his second goal he spun free
from a defender and then whipped a shot over the OES goalkeeper.
For his third goal, he shrugged off an Aardvark defender and
then rocketed in a shot at point-blank range, and then capped it
off with a spinning jump-shot past a stunned goalie for his
final goal.
Ultimately, OES settled for simply trying to keep the ball out
of the hands of the HRV offense, and ran off several lengthy
possessions in the final five minutes to ruin any Eagle hopes
for a comeback.
The stinginess of the OES defensive effort in the first half
came by necessity: HRV won the battle for ground balls by nearly
a 4-to-1 margin and outshot OES 31-17.
Just like the loss to Lincoln, the defeat did not do anything to
change HRV’s playoff situation. They were unable to catch
Lincoln or OES heading into their games with top two teams in
the Columbia League, and a win or a Grant loss would secure the
Eagles third place and a playoff spot.
The Eagles are currently 4-4 with two games remaining.
They play at Grant on Thursday and then host last-place
Cleveland to finish the regular season on Monday.
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