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Heat spoils Club America debut

By DENNIS SILVA II, LAREDO MORNING TIMES

06/07/2007

As summer vacations go, despite the brevity of this particular excursion, this was as refreshing and productive as the Laredo Heat could have hoped.

The Heat took a one-day exile from Premier Development League play for an exhibition against Las Aguilas del Club America on Wednesday. The Heat pulled away with a 3-1 victory before a crowd of 980 at the Student Activity Center.

"We intended to start off with normal starters for 20, 25 minutes before letting reserves play," Heat general manager J.J. Vela said. "We want to give guys playing time that they don't get during the season."

The contest was the Club America's academy's first game, and it put forth a competitive showing, displaying little of the anxiety and nervousness that might have been expected.

Club America stayed close for the first half. After the Heat (4-1-3) scored on captain Daniel Galvan's free kick two minutes into the game, Club America's defense tightened up behind the strong play of goalkeeper Marcos Sanchez, who dove, sprung and leapt for every ball in his path, allowing only one of Laredo's 14 first-half shot attempts to fall in.

His teammates rewarded him when midfielder Javier Martinez's kick right before halftime evened the score.

Laredo opened up the game in the second half. Sixteen-year-old midfielder Felix Garcia, a sophomore at LBJ, scored on a boom shot from the left wing at the 53:04 mark, 11 minutes later, forward Dionisio Infante's penalty kick into the upper right of the net sealed the game for the Heat.

Aside from Garcia, reserves Lexton Moy, Alexis Salazar, Gregory Mulamba and Julio Vazquez also saw significant time.

"We definitely wanted to see more out of Felix," Vela said. "He has a good future ahead of him. We have a lot of young kids like Lexton as well who we want to see more of."

At the midpoint of the season, Vela says there are still some things the team can afford to fix. And while improving on the team's 8-0 midway mark last season is a daunting task, that's the standard the team has set for itself.

The Heat has been resilient on defense, holding opponents to six goals, but has scored just 13 goals in eight games.

"We knew it was going to be tougher this year, after making the Finals last year," Vela said. "We have a target on our backs. As a defensive team, we're very good. We're right up there at the top, in terms of stats. But I still think we can pass better and attack from the midfield more. We need to score more goals."

Laredo sits atop the Mid-South Division standings of the Southern Conference with 15 points, courtesy of a 4-1-3 record, four ahead of El Paso. It returns to PDL action on Saturday against 2-1-3 New Orleans at the SAC at 8:05 p.m.