The Hoover boys’ soccer team’s season blossomed with the Tornados defeating Valley Academy of Arts & Sciences by a huge margin of 4-0 on Wednesday at home. Head Coach Luis had this to say about taking the win of their first game of the season.

“I feel grea,” Hoover Coach Luis Ardiano said. “It’s an amazing feeling obviously to start off our season right. But obviously you know, we don’t want to get too confident because this is a good team you know. But I definitely recognize we are also in rebuilding mode. So we have to take the good that we did today and learn from the bad you know. But anytime you win man you have to celebrate so I’m glad with the victory today.”

The game commenced and Hoover High took possession of the ball. The possession changed back and forth between Hoover High and Valley Academy.

About 17 minutes into the first half, Hoover managed to score a goal due to a header goal player Alex Vardanyan scored from a receiving corner kick.

Just 11 minutes before the end of the first half, Hoover’s players managed to dribble the ball across the field to Valley Academy’s goal and score its second goal. Sebastian Izaguirre received a cross pass, and with a wide open look, dribbled the ball just to the offside line, and scored. Valley Academy could not reciprocate again and halftime ended with Hoover leading 2-0.

Fifteeen minutes into the second half, after a back and forth action from both teams, Hoover scored again with a cross pass to Vardan Zatikyan at the right post. Hoover’s impeccable ball handling and defense was simply above Valley Academy throughout the match. 

Marek Papazyan received a pass from the field and scored a header goal for Hoover’s final goal.

“I was actually surprised in the beginning to be honest,” Ardiano said. “I thought that they weren’t going to connect the way they did. So it’s actually a good thing that they actually played. They moved the ball really well today despite, for the first time, being the eleven they were.

“Most of the time in practice we kinda separated and mixed the players, so this is the first time they got to play together as a unit. And I think they created some good opportunities. But there were also chances that we missed. So the chemistry is in between. It definitely could get better.

“One of the things that we definitely lacked was communication. When you’re playing, you have your teammate who’s getting pressured, it’s important to let them know that they have pressure so they know their options. There was also an incident early in the game where our goalkeeper almost got hurt because they didn’t communicate. 

“Communication is very important and at this stage when we don’t talk, it can definitely cause problems for us so one of the things we’re definitely gonna focus on is communicating.”