Soccer Game Preview: Matanzas vs. Nease

The Matanzas Pirates will challenge the Nease Panthers at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Matanzas is strutting in with some offensive muscle as they've averaged 2.6 goals per game this season.

Matanzas gave up the first goal last Friday, but they didn't let that get them down. They had just enough and edged Lake Wales out 3-2. Winning may never get old, but the Pirates sure are getting used to it with their third in a row.

They hit Lake Wales with a three-pronged attack, as the team got scores from Sergio Posada, Jonathan Costa, and Tim Shestakov.

Meanwhile, there's no place like home for Nease, who bounced back after a loss on the road last Thursday. They put the hurt on Fernandina Beach with a sharp 7-1 victory last Friday. Considering the Panthers have won five matchups by more than two goals this season, Friday's blowout was nothing new.

Pablo Diaz, who's played more minutes than anyone else on the Nease squad sat out for Friday's contest. With Diaz sidelined, Nease had to make some big changes to the lineup. Samuel Ortiz played for 70 minutes having averaged 46.2 this season and Tegan Bartell got 80 vs. an average of 51.1.

Nease's win was their third straight at home, which pushed their record up to 7-5-3. The wins came thanks to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they scored 15 goals over those three games. As for Matanzas, they are on a roll lately: they've won seven of their last nine matches, which provided a nice bump to their 11-3-1 record this season.

Matanzas suffered a grim 4-0 defeat to Nease in their previous meeting back in January of 2017. Can Matanzas avenge their defeat or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.