Yuba City gearing up for playoffs

His team had just notched their 20th win of the season, but Paul Shank wasn't in the mood to shovel praise onto his players.

Instead, he just laid out the singular goal of the next day's practice for the Yuba City High soccer team.

"Finishing, finishing, finishing," he said.

Though the Honkers had just dispatched visiting Inderkum 2-1, the coach lamented on the fact that his team couldn't convert the multitude of opportunities it had into more scores, especially with the playoffs looming. And especially against a team that entered Honker Stadium just 1-3-1 in Tri-County Conference play.

"We couldn't score. We had opportunity after opportunity and couldn't put it in," said Shank. "We have a chance to do something in the playoffs, but we have to be a tight-knit group and disciplined."

While Shank thought the final score easily could have been 5-1, Yuba City (20-2-2) did just enough to slide past the Tigers (4-6-4), using a gorgeous strike by Isaac Mora for an equalizer and a fortuitous bounce in the second half for the go-ahead score.

In the 30th minute, Mora received a throw-in from Dario Teyes, set his feet and teed off, sending a rocket into the left- hand corner of the net. It was the 20th goal of the season for Mora, whose 140-pound frame contains a cannon of a leg.

"He's all over the field scoring goals and he never quits," said teammate Walker Shaw. "He's the offensive MVP in my eyes."

The score helped erase an early aberration after the Tigers took advantage of a lax Yuba City defense in the fifth minute of the game. Danny Lomeli received a pass that sliced through the Honkers back line, sprinted right and put in a beautifully placed shot into the right corner of the goal.

"Our defense fell asleep at the beginning," Shank said.

After that moment, though, and especially in the second half, the Honkers fortified their defensive efforts, creating a situation where goalie Carlos Vasquez had to do very little work.

"We dominated them in the second half, in the first half we were sluggish," Shank said.

Yuba City would move ahead after a ball deflected over the outstretched fingers of Tigers' goalie David Garza and into the vicinity of Giovanni Padilla, who used his head to put the Honkers on top nine minutes into the second half.

"Sometimes it better to be lucky than good," Shank said.

After falling 1-0 to league-leading Natomas on Monday, the Honkers are on pace to finish second in the TCC. That means playing on the road, away from the synthetic turf of Honker Stadium, which the team plays so well on.

In order to be ready, Shank has enlisted the help of Yuba College coach Imed Dossy to help "refine" Yuba City's attack.

"All it takes is one mistake and we're cooked with the way were putting it the back of the net," Shank said.