Alvaro Garcia put San Marcos one step forward with a goal in the third minute, but Santa Ynez forced the Royals two steps back in a 2-1 loss at San Marcos on Tuesday.
Garcia scored on a cross from Billy Bertha, hammering a ball from 18-yards out that struck the bottom of the crossbar before bouncing behind the goal line.
The Pirates answered 20 minutes later and took the lead soon after halftime.
“We didn’t get the tying goal but I’m proud of the way they played,” said San Marcos head coach Brian Eisen, who thought his team did a good job of creating scoring chances, just not a great job of finishing.
“We were playing the patient game, waiting to see how many more black shirts we could get on us before we decided to take a shot,” said Eisen wryly.
“The patience killed us, we gotta be a lot quicker with our shot taking.”
“We’re just not consistent enough,” said junior captain Efren Gutierrez, who splits time between the keeper postion and central defense. “We have shorts spurts of good play then short spurts of breakdown defense.”
The Royals fall to 4-4-2 and have a road game on Thursday against Channel Islands.
