Mount Vernon Boys Spoil Wolverine Home Opener

The Mount Vernon boys’ varsity soccer captain, Amardo Oakley was nowhere in sight for the season opening game at West Potomac Monday night. He suffered a broken leg last week in the Majors' scrimmage and will unfortunately miss the entire season.

Somebody needed to step up and take command, and sophomore sensation Simond Kargbo did just that, leading his offense with two goals in a 4-0 rout of West Potomac.

The clock ticked down to just 30 seconds left in the first half when a beautiful crossing pass flew through the air in front of the Wolverine goal. Kargbo leapt up and put a header into the net from seven yards out to take the lead into halftime, 1-0.

Majors Coach Robert Garza said it was frustrating that it took his team almost 38 minutes to score, but was proud the players were able to rally around their captain who will not be able to play this season.

“We lost our captain last week. He scored in the first minute [of the scrimmage] and broke it in the seventh minute,” Garza said after the game. “We carry his jersey and team ball around for him. The guys said, 'We have to do this for Oakley,' and we settled down finally and played our game a little bit.”

West Potomac reenergized itself in the second half, flying downfield, firing shot after shot from 18-to-20 yards out. Forward James Taylor bent some perfect balls toward the net with his rocket-like left foot but Majors keeper Lucas Belanger was also on fire, catching everything sent his way. 

Although West Potomac carried the momentum for the first 20 minutes of the second half, Mount Vernon strategized to take Taylor out of his game.

“Basically what we tried to do is constantly have someone on him [Taylor] so when he looked up there was a maroon jersey in his face,” Garza said. “We all know he is a left foot so we kept him to his right, and he got a little frustrated. But don’t get me wrong he is a heck of a ball player.”

Sophomore Erik Rodriguez also did his part defensively to stop Potomac from scoring. He did a strong job clearing and tackling opposing players for the ball, and kicking it deep to his front four. Rodriguez took a pass from midfield in the second half, dribbled it down the middle and flicked a grounder through the keeper’s legs for Mount Vernon’s second goal, with 20 minutes left in the game.

“We needed a goal to get us hyped up because we were shaky. We came back up and put two in and kept on going,” Rodriguez said. “The coach told us to play like we usually do and put a couple goals in and we did.”

Less than three minutes had passed when Kargbo blasted the ball inside the left post from ten yard out for his second score of the game.

“I just happened to be in the right place at the right time and capitalized on it," Kargbo said. “In the beginning [second half] we had no midfield and that hurt us but they could not capitalize. So we told the midfielders to just relax and play the ball.”

Majors defender Damarco Dacosta added a fourth goal to seal things up and put the first game of the season in the books.

Mount Vernon plays next at home against Lee at 7 p.m. on March 18.