ST. HELENA >> Pulling a page out of their recent past, the Kelseyville Knights routed the St. Helena Saints 7-2 in North Central League I boys soccer action on Tuesday afternoon in St. Helena.
While the three-time defending league champions are scuffling a bit this season, they looked like their old selves against St. Helena. Damian Ledesma, son of coach Eduardo Ledesma, came up with his first career hat trick, scoring all three of his goals in the second half to put the game out of reach.
“We had some pretty good attacks,” the elder Ledesma said of Kelseyville’s performance. “We made some changes and they worked pretty well.”
Jesus Aguilera, Trey Conrad and Sebastian Lopez scored in the first half to give the Knights (2-3-2 league, 3-5-2 overall) a 3-1 halftime lead. Besides Ledesman’s three goals in the second half, the Knights picked up another goal from Anthony Pantaleon.
Standouts for the Knights included Ledesma up front, Esgar Aguirre in the midfield and Sal Barba at sweeper.
Kelseyville players with assists in the win were Barba, Aguilera, Ledesma and Justin Perez.
The Knights open the second half of their league schedule Friday in Lower Lake.
“We’re looking at it game by game,” Ledesma said of the second half of the season. “Forget about the playoffs, we’re just looking at each game as it comes. We’ll see what happens.”
In other boys soccer action Tuesday:
Lower Lake 4, M’town 0
At Lower Lake, the Lower Lake Trojans got the early jump on Middletown and went on to shut out the Mustangs in NCL I play.
Gerardo Rodriguez scored twice for the Trojans, now 5-1-1 in league and 6-2-1 overall. Jose Morales and Alex Rivera also had goals.
“We had it under control in both halves,” Lower Lake coach Javier Michel said. “Everyone did a pretty good job. Everyone was talking.”
Lower Lake led 3-0 at the half.
“The first 15 minutes we had a hard time settling in on the field,” Middletown coach Luis Chairez said. “That’s when we gave up all three of their goals in the first half. We settled in after that and didn’t give up another goal until about 10 minutes left in the game. Our defense hung in there pretty well with them today. Overall I’m pretty happy with the way the team played.”
Added Chairez of the Mustangs (1-5-1, 2-8-1), “Our game is getting better and we’ll keep getting better as we go.”
Lower Lake hosts Kelseyville on Friday while Middletown is home against Fort Bragg.
