Southside soccer coach Bijan Timjani chalked up Friday’s tough loss to Van Buren as a moment of “bad luck.”

Van Buren, two days after dropping a heart-breaking 3-2 loss to Siloam Springs, wasn’t about to give anything back.

Van Buren freshman Kylan Almond scored with 19:29 left in the regulation to tie the match, and sophomore keeper Chris Mendoza came up big in a shootout as the Pointers beat Southside 1-1 (5-4) to advance to today’s 11:30 a.m. matchup with Greenwood in the first round of the River Valley Cup.

“That’s the way soccer works,” Van Buren coach Nathan Almond said. “They (Southside) had a ball in the corner and they passed back to the keeper and he got a little scared, and Kylan ... Kylan was in the right spot in the front of the net and he put it away.

“That’s a freshman that did that right there.”

“That was not his (Salomon Amador),” Timjani said. “We had a mistake in the passing lane. That was on the defender.”

The Mavericks grabbed a 1-0 lead at the 14:26 mark of the first half on Alex Mendoza’s goal.

It looked for awhile as if his goal would stand up.

But the resilient Pointers found a way.


“Once it goes to a shootout, it’s anybody’s game,” Nathan Almond said. “But we did what we needed to do; we got there. Chris (Mendoza), he showed up big for us in the goal.”

Just a sophomore, Mendoza was thrust into the starting lineup when Manasses Delafuente tore his ACL.

He’s really stepping up and playing well,” Almond said. “We needed that one. We had two leads the other night at Siloam Springs; the kids played really well and lost one late.”

“With penalty kicks, anything can happen,” Timjani said. “At key positions we have inexperience, and the only cure for that is playing. Believe it or not, this was a better game than the last couple of games.”
