Boys soccer: Israel Cortez’s two goals paces Oswego to 9-0 victory over Batavia

OSWEGO – Israel Cortez may not have been in Oswego’s starting lineup Thursday, but he made one thing certain in the matchup against Batavia.

He was going to be super.

Cortez found the back of the net twice within the first 10 minutes of entering the pitch and was one of eight goal scorers for the Panthers in a 9-0 victory for their first win of the season.

“It feels like an honor, I guess,” Cortez said. “We’ll see how it goes from here, but hopefully it just goes up and we make it to the top.”

The onslaught of scoring more than doubled the Panthers’ goal total from the season, as they entered having scored seven goals in their first four games.

Head coach Gaspar Arias said it was a good feeling to see his team return to form after going scoreless in each of their last two contests.

“We struggled to score some goals against teams that played very straight forward,” Arias said. “But scoring those goals today is going to help us with our confidence to know that we can create and move the ball forward to score goals and to be able to counter consistently.”

Of the nine goals that were scored by Oswego (1-4-2) in the game, four of them came from players who came off the bench, including the two from Cortez. Arias said it felt good knowing that even the players on the bench were getting mixed into the scoring action.

“We’re confident that any player coming off the bench can perform the way we are asking them to,” Arias said. “It’s a good feeling to have those players fit into those rotations and we can trust that they’re going to do the job.”

Cortez found the back of the net for the first time with 6:23 left in the first half after tapping in a cross from David Castro and capped a four-goal opening half from the Panthers.

“I saw everything building up after David got that pass,” Cortez said. “He just delivered the ball straight to me, and it just went into the back of the net.”

Ariel Cid kicked off the scoring for the Panthers in the seventh minute after launching a ball into the top-left corner of the goal. Two minutes later, Giovanni Lopez would follow suit with a shot to the far post and Enrique Castañeda also recorded a far post goal in the 24th minute.

The second half went just as well for the Panthers even without their starters on the field. After goals from Alan Mendez and Castro, Cortez found the back of the net again in the 60th minute to make the score 7-0 and officially cut the remaining time in half.

Lucas Ensign added a goal on a corner kick in the 67th minute before Alan Mindock ended the game with 1:55 left on the clock after becoming the eighth different Panther to score a goal.

Gabriel Diaz registered the only shot on goal in the game for the Bulldogs (0-6-1).