El Dorado’s boys’ soccer team suffered a bitter 1-0 loss against Hot Springs Lakeside on Thursday at Memorial Stadium. The Wildcats fell to 3-2-1 in conference and will have to recover quickly with a three-game week, beginning Monday.
The Wildcats will see White Hall for the first time Monday at Memorial Stadium before taking on Pine Bluff Tuesday and Hot Springs on Friday.
Friday’s game, on the road, will be crucial for El Dorado, which tied the Trojans in the previous meeting.
“We have a very full schedule next week. We’re trying to manage fatigue. Hot Springs is going to be a tough one,” said El Dorado coach Rex Hayes.
For both El Dorado’s boys and girls, the varying ranges in experience and talent in conference foes has turned into a bit of a conundrum. The Wildcats beat Sheridan 10-0 and Pine Bluff 6-0 but lost 1-0 to the Trojans and 2-1 to Lake Hamilton.
The matches go from one extreme to the next, which makes them more difficult to prepare for and makes the competition tricky.
“It’s two totally different levels for sure. And that’s nothing against those programs. Sheridan, for example, we beat them 10-0. They’re just a young team, lots of freshmen, not a lot of experience,” said Hayes. “And then size-wise, we’ve got some larger players, a bunch of football players that play with us. We play teams like Lake Hamilton and Lakeside, who are extremely physical and then you go against Sheridan, who are a little more technical, a little smaller and young. Yeah, it’s hard to kind of manage. In terms of intensity, especially in practice, we’re trying to do a better job of matching the tempo and matching the intensity of those matches with who’s coming up next. You take it a match at a time but at the same time, we kind of downplay if we need to. It’s very tough.”
The blowout victories can be a Catch-22 as far as how much do the starters stay on the field, how aggressive is too aggressive against a clearly outmanned, young opponent?
“It’s a combination of everything. On those easier games, we try to put in some other players that don’t typically get playing time. So, the starters are missing out on that match fitness when they go to somebody like Lake Hamilton. And every possession is important. It’s a mental switch. We have the capability to play both games. It’s just a matter of when it’s time to turn on and just kind of waking up. In those crucial moments when you’re ‘waking up’ is when you get scored on. It doesn’t take long. Just little lapses you can get away with in some games and in other games you just can’t.”
The Wildcats have split with Lakeside but have matches remaining with the Trojans and Wolves. Hayes said the rest of the season leaves plenty to accomplish.
“I think the team is coming together. We’re playing the way we want to play. We’re constantly working on little things and so is everyone else. We’re just trying to overcome and get to where we want to be and how we want to play for an 80-minute game. We know how to play that way, but we want to be consistent with it for an entire game. That’s what we’re dealing with,” said Hayes, who said this upcoming week will be pivotal.
“White Hall, from what I understand, they’re no slouch. We’re going to have to come in and play the way we know how to play. Hot Springs is going to be a nice ramp up, I think, White Hall to Pine Bluff to Hot Springs. It’s nothing we can’t do but we’ve got to stay focused.
“Hot Springs, our tie with them, the game kind of got off the rails for a little bit. We played headless for a moment. We’ve got something to prove when we go back to Hot Springs because we shouldn’t have tied that game.”