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The biggest unwritten story in local prep soccer is the effect that each team’s field has on the game. <\/span>There are narrow fields, short fields, well-kept fields, and torn up fields—each restriction has a different effect on each team, sometimes favoring and sometimes hindering them. <\/span>And there are occasionally fields like the one that the CIF top-ranked Millikan Rams and the Jordan Panthers played on Friday afternoon: namely, muddy. <\/span>So muddy that there were puddles, so muddy that the ball wouldn’t slide through some patches of the field, so muddy even that often the ball would soar through the air, come down, and stick in the mud without bouncing—incidentally, these are the three tests that determine whether or not a field is playable in the rain. <\/span>“It was…pretty close,” said Millikan coach Rod Petkovic after the game, when asked if he thought the field was okay to play on. <\/span>Still, his Rams did the dirty job, coming away with a 4-0 win on the Panthers’ turf—or what there was of turf, at least.<\/p>\n In the first half, it was Jordan who looked like they might get an early goal, as they had two good tries in the first fifteen minutes, the first a beautifully-played mid-air shot from Adrian Garcia that clanked off the post—Garcia is the right forward for the Panthers, who paced their offense and was one of the only players on either team who seemed to have success maneuvering the ball. <\/span>Giovanni Rodriguez also played a ball in, that Rams keeper Jorge Becerra had to hit the mud to stop.<\/p>\n Then, in the fifteenth minute, Garcia was red-carded for putting a little too much mud—ahem—in his choice of words protesting a call made by the referee. <\/span>Garcia’s absence clearly slowed the Panthers’ attack, and though they got a few more chances (a cross by Edgar Palacios that was left unfinished and a ball that Juan Gonzales might have put in the net if he hadn’t slipped in the mud while he was striking it), Millikan more or less took over after that. <\/span>At halftime, the keepers had kept their nets cleaner than their jerseys, and we had doughnuts at the break.<\/p>\n The first 20 minutes of the second half made it seem that the rain—which continued to fall intermittently—and the mud would be the most effective defenders, as sloppy, wet play yielded few shots. <\/span>Then, in the 64th<\/sup> minute, Millikan’s dynamic duo struck again—Jose Torres found some room (and some traction) and took the ball to the right side of the Jordan box, then crossed it left, beyond the Panthers’ keeper, where his teammate Manuel Espinoza easily booted it into an empty net, giving Millikan a 1-0 lead. <\/span>Two minutes later Cesar Ramirez booted a free kick into the Panthers’ box, and after a Ram headed it to the ground, Edgar Gutierrez toed it in. <\/span>The scoring continued as the quick two points seemed to take the life out of the Panthers’ limbs—in the 75th<\/sup>, Edgar Melendrez hit the crossbar with a shot, and had it bounce straight down and stick in the ground. <\/span>After nobody could clear it, Meyer Vazquez scored it—five minutes later, just before the final whistle blew, Vazquez scored again from a Juan Castro cross.<\/p>\n “We were waiting for the second half, so we were on the better side of the field,” said Petkovic. <\/span>“We stayed defensive in the first half.”<\/p>\n “It’s the worst conditions I’ve ever seen,” said Chris Larios, Jordan’s JV coach who was filling in for Juan Rodriguez. <\/span>“We’re a finesse team, and it’s hard when we can’t touch the ball because of all the mud.” <\/span><\/p>\n Petkovic echoed his sentiment. <\/span>“You know, we like to push the ball, so it’s certainly not the conditions we’d prefer.” <\/span>The win keeps Millikan perfect at the end of the first half of league play, and drops Jordan to 3-2-1. <\/span>For full league standings, check back tomorrow, and come back soon for our preview of the second half of league play!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was wet, it was muddy, it was downright dirty–but the Rams got the job done in the final game of the first round of league 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