Sultans, Monarchs tighten up for tie

By Adam Paul
Updated: February 9, 2018

2018 EAST COUNTY PREP BOYS SOCCER

By Adam Paul

EastCountySports.com

GROSSMONT VALLEY LEAGUE

SANTANA 2, MONTE VISTA 2

SPRING VALLEY (2-8-18) – The last time the Santana Sultans and the Monte Vista Monarchs met out in Santee a few weeks ago the Sultans were able to eek out a 1-0 victory. So fast forward this time around both teams are still in the hunt for the league crown with Valhalla, which defeated the Sultans 3-1 a couple games ago.

Early on things didn’t look good for the Sultans as Monte Vista would take advantage of an opportunity a couple minutes in with a goal to go up 1-0.

The Monarchs would remain up a goal until semi-late in the first half when they would strike again with another goal to extend their lead 2-0.

With the Monarchs up a couple goals, it didn’t look good for Santana as they couldn’t get anything going on the offensive side of the field.

However, Santana finally caught a break with about 10:30 minutes remaining in the half on a free kick by Ben Sampson who was able to blast it past the goaltender for his fifth goal on the season to cut the Monarch lead 2-1.

Still trailing but now back in the contest the Sultans looked for more and received it a couple minutes later as Nathan Hughes kicked a beautiful ball to Lane Dukes who took it and scored his 12th goal off a close shot to knot the score 2-2.

Santana was now full of confidence as they had erased the two-goal deficit by the Monarchs and were now back in shape.

With the score tied 2-2 at the break, things looked really interesting for the second half as Santana now had the momentum heading into the intermission.

In the second half, both squads came out in full force but couldn’t get it past the goalkeeper despite the various opportunities.

With the tie, both Monte Vista and Santana are tied for second place at 4-1-2 and if Monte Vista were to beat Valhalla next week there would be a three-way tie for first place in the league.

Monte Vista with the tie moves to 10-2-7 on the year and Santana is now 12-5-6.