The improving Terremoto '13 boys team is excited about its upcoming play, as it prepares for the annual BooFest tournament this month, and State Cup Round 2 play in the toughest group in its division the first weekend in November.

The team traveled to Concord to play Diablo Valley United, and then returned to Livermore to host another strong Diablo Valley East team this past weekend.

The Livermore battle was a good one, as the visitors went ahead very early in the match 1-0, to serve notice it was ready to play, in this important league matchup between a couple of teams that were chasing the league leaders that Terremoto had defeated the previous week, 4-1. 

Terremoto was unable to equal the score by halftime, despite many chances that just missed, and pressuring the Diablo defense continually until then.

The second half turned out to be a wild one.  The large and noisy crowd was treated to quite a nerve-wracking, exciting battle with both teams giving everything they had, in full speed knowing what was at stake.  The teams fought hard in an incredible back-and-forth battle, with both teams almost scoring, and both goalkeepers, including Terremoto's Brayden Aycock, making good saves and playing solidly with many close calls.

With so many chances just having barely missed, the team felt good going into the second half, but still down 1-0.  At halftime, striker Julian Marron proclaimed, "I know we're going to win!"  But that was still very much in doubt, as Diablo came out with confidence, smelling victory it thought could come soon.

However, Team Terremoto and tricky midfielder Joaquin Retuyan had other ideas.  In only the first minute of the second half, as the team pressed forward Joaquin grabbed a pass out of the air with his left foot, and eagerly but calmly delivered a well-placed shot in the upper corner, to tie the game at 1-1as the rabid Terremoto crowd finally had something to really cheer about after many near misses.  The coach said later, "That grab out of the air with his so-called weaker foot, and cool shot, really gave us the relief we needed to open the game and get us to a good spot."

Eight minutes later, again unassisted, Joaquin got another chance, and delivered a nice cross-goal shot, again with his left foot, on the ground past the Diablo goalkeeper for Terremoto to take a 2-1 lead.  After striker Julian Marron received a great pass from teammate Mason Fehlmann and scored a great shot, it was called back for offside in a close call the video showed was actually good.  However, Diablo quickly then pounced with an own goal to knot the score had 2-2..

Soon after that though, with momentum seemingly shifting back and forth, with eight minutes left in this tense game, fullback Luke Achziger took a quick pass back to him from Joaquin after he had thrown the ball in, and bombed a long hard shot into the far side corner of the goal the goalkeeper barely saw.  "That hard shot from so far out was another real shot in the arm for us," commented the coach, "Because that one was really so good a shot everybody on both teams had to appreciate."

But the Diablo team was not done, and broke through with a breakaway, two and a half minutes left in the game, to tie the score at 3-3.  A tie would not bode well for any team in the league standings, so both teams were down to the final 2 minutes of this one to try to pull out a now-desperate victory. 

Terremoto kicked off, and with charging Andros Azer racing down as well, Julian Marron did what he seems to do best, charged the goal, got a ball from Andros that bounced off of a Diablo defender, and nicely banged yet another right-footed shot into the Diablo goal for a 4-3 Terremoto leade, to the sheer delight of the dizzying crowd.  Diablo pressed yet again, but the strong defense of Gavin Su and second-half goalkeeper Grayson Ryan particularly shut the door on them, to seal the hard-fought 4-3 victory.

Despite the tense battle, both teams exhibited good sportsmanship, during and after the game.  The Terremoto coach confided, "This Diablo team was really good and well-coached, and their sportsmanship exhibited during and after the game really stood out as a cut above."   

Interestingly, as luck might have it, the State Cup draw puts both teams against each other again, in November, in Ripon.

The previous other game against the other Diablo team had resulted in a 6-1 victory for Terremoto, with two nice goals by Grayson Ryan, two by Julian Marron, one by Mason Fehlmann, and one by Brayden Aycock.  The coach praised many of the players after that contest, also including Tony Mendoza, the defense of Grayson Layog, and continued good play by the back line.