By Michael Lindsay
DeKalb County soccer kept their hot offensive start to the season rolling Tuesday evening as they defeated District 6-2A foe Livingston Academy, 5-0.
“We played well; we worked the ball well and Livingston’s got a strong defense,” said Tiger head coach Dylan Kleparek. “They put a wall back there and it’s hard to penetrate that wall. We had good movement and passing and got some quality goals.”
DeKalb County’s Miguel Mata had a day offensively as he recorded a hat trick with 3 goals and 3 assists. Along with Miguel’s 3 goals, Yair Mata and Axel Aranda tacked on one each.
“We’ve got some really special guys; we’ve got 10 seniors and Yair Mata is the leading goal scorer in the state according to MaxPreps,” Kleparek said. “We got several goals by different players tonight.”
The Tigers got on the board quickly as Miguel Mata scored in the game’s opening 3 minutes to put his team ahead 1-0. DeKalb County took a 2-0 lead with 20:13 remaining in the first half as Mata assisted Aranda for his lone goal of the evening.
After taking a 2-0 advantage into halftime, the Tigers again struck quickly to start the second half as Yair Mata assisted Miguel for a goal at the 34:50 mark to put DeKalb up 3-0. Miguel Mata’s hat trick came less than 4 minutes later as he scored with 31:32 left to put his team ahead 4-0.
Yair Mata wrapped up the night for DeKalb County with a goal assisted by Miguel Mata with 2:57 left to make the final score 5-0 in favor of the Tigers.
Tuesday’s shutout is the third of this season by DeKalb County keeper Conner Vance and the Tiger defense.
“Our defense is getting better and better,” Kleparek. “We played out of the back really well tonight and were finding our targets.”
Up next for DeKalb County is a pair of district matchups as they travel to White County on Thursday and Cumberland County on Tuesday. Livingston hosts Upperman on Thursday before traveling to Stone Memorial on Tuesday, April 25.
