Hood River Valley loses, 3-0, to La Salle Prep in boys soccer

HOOD RIVER — The Hood River Valley (HRV)boys soccer team lost, 3-0, to the La Salle Prep Falcons in a windy and physical Northwest Oregon Conference affair on Oct. 8 in Hood River.

“No credit taken away from them,” HRV head coach Alvaro Lara said after the game. “They did a great job coming out here, giving us a good fight. They’re the defending champions for a reason, right? But overall, I think we could have executed a little bit better.

“We had some defensive mistakes we could definitely work on. Overall, I’d say I’m happy with the effort the boys put in, but we clearly have some work to do, so we’ll go to the drawing board and start over again from there.”

La Salle won the Class 5A state championship in 2024 and has 16 seniors on this year’s experienced team.

The first half was a back-and-forth game, with momentum going La Salle’s way in the opening minutes. Henry Foubert got that momentum going with a goal for La Salle. Foubert snuck the ball right by HRV goalkeeper Emmanuel Galindo with 34:26 to play in the first half to put the Falcons up 1-0. Galindo and La Salle goalkeeper Lucas Hawkins fought off several shots on goal the rest of the half in a solid defensive display.

Things changed a bit in the second half as the physicality increased, as well as La Salle’s lead. Benjamin Macias started the second half off hot for the Falcons, as he scored a goal less than two minutes into the half, pushing the Falcon lead to 2-0. With 25:41 to go, Foubert got a second goal, pushing the lead to 3-0.

Despite the deficit, HRV kept applying pressure with several shots, including an Anthony Hernandez shot that barely missed with 7:18 to play.

Next up, HRV (3-5-2 overall, 1-1-1 NWOC) will battle the Centennial Eagles at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 14 at Centennial High School. Centennial (8-2) is tied with La Salle (8-1-1) atop the NWOC with a 4-0 league record.

“That’s another battle game,” said Lara. “At the end of the day, this kind of game is the one that would have given us a good chance at the playoffs. Centennial is going to be another playoff game that we have to make sure we execute, so we can give ourselves a good chance to make the playoffs.”