NEW PALESTINE — You couldn’t have asked for a better bounceback win.
After having a 3-1 lead at halftime and 4-1 lead in the second half, New Palestine’s boys soccer team gave up four goals including a goal in the closing seconds to lose the season opener, 5-4, at Mooresville Monday.
On Thursday, back home at New Palestine, the defending Hoosier Heritage Conference co-champions began defending their crown against visiting Yorktown.
It was far from Monday’s nine-goal shootout.
New Palestine junior Cole Christopher found the back of the Yorktown net in the 46th minute for the only goal of the night to give the Dragons a 1-0 victory.
It was the first win of the season, first conference victory and the initial win for first-year head coach Juan Diaz de Leon.
“The most important thing was getting the win,” Diaz de Leon said. “That was the biggest thing. It’s a good start for conference play.
“It wasn’t as pretty as we wanted it to be. I ran them (Wednesday). We had to get back to basics, lots of getting rid of the ball quickly, moving the ball. I forced them to try to do that (against Yorktown). It worked but, obviously, a lot of guys were tired so we didn’t get as many goals as we would have expected.”
Yorktown goalkeeper Luke Diebold had a bit to do with that too.
He stopped an early second-half breakaway from New Palestine’s Mark Everett, another one-on-one with Christopher late in the match and some strong late second-half opportunities from Christopher, frosh Liam Day and a header from senior Eli Martin.
“Give credit to (Diebold). He was insane,” Diaz de Leon added. “It could have easily been a 4-0 match.”
On the other end, the strong chances were few and far between for the Tigers.
They had their best chance to tie the match in the 52nd minute. Kevin Garcia saw an opening, but a dive to the right by Dragon goalkeeper Jake Wells smothered the attempt and kept the Dragons with a 1-0 advantage.
“He’s going to be a force to reckon with,” Diaz de Leon said of Wells’ late-game stop. “He’s a leader, one of our captains, so we expect a lot out of him. He’s a phenomenal keeper.”
Christopher’s goal was his third of the season. He had two in the loss Monday, along with an assist, and had his chances for a multi-goal game Thursday, but more than adding to the stats, he was glad to see he and his teammates come back after a rough start to the week.
“This was really big since we have a young team,” Christopher said. “We had 10 guys that graduated that were starters (from the conference championship team). We’re transitioning a whole new team in. Hopefully we’ll keep building, it’s a young team.
“It’s really just working hard and communicating.”
New Palestine improved to 1-1 overall and 1-0 in the HHC. Yorktown dropped to 0-2 and 0-1.
The Dragons are scheduled to host Brownsburg (2-0) at 11:30 a.m. Saturday at Kelso
Stadium. Yorktown travels to Anderson (1-0) Tuesday.
“Bouncing back (to get a win) is huge,” Diaz de Leon added on Thursday’s win. “It sets the tone for the conference play as we get on to the next match.
“I told the guys (after Monday) to forget about (the loss). I harped on them, gave them as much grief as I could, pin-pointed mistakes and went through the video, and gave them homework. As soon as they stepped on the field (Thursday), I said, ‘Forget.’ We’re not interested in what happened. We start today, and I think they took it well.”
