The Orland Trojans are taking a road trip to face off against the Las Plumas Thunderbirds at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday. Orland is strutting in with some offensive muscle as they've averaged 2.8 goals per game this season.
Orland will roll into the matchup after a wild two-game stretch: they only put up one goal on Thursday, then bounced right back against Oroville on Tuesday. Orland's defense stepped up to hand Oroville a 7-0 shutout. Given the Trojans' advantage in MaxPreps' California soccer rankings (they are ranked 549th, while the Tigers are ranked 1105th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Orland's offense was hitting Oroville from everywhere, as six different players booted in a goal. Sergio Flores led that balanced group of strikers and accounted for two goals all by himself.
Meanwhile, Las Plumas hadn't done well against Gridley recently (they were 0-7-2 in their previous nine matchups), but they didn't let the past get in their way on Tuesday. Las Plumas had just enough and edged Gridley out 1-0. Jose Rojas had to tread lightly for part of the match after he was hit with a yellow card, but that was the only trouble the Thunderbirds got from the refs.
Las Plumas' victory bumped their record up to 10-2-2. As for Orland, their win bumped their record up to 7-4-3.
Orland came out on top in a nail-biter against Las Plumas when the teams last played on January 14th, sneaking past 1-0. The rematch might be a little tougher for Orland since the team won't have the home-pitch advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
