CALUMET CITY | Thornton Fractional's Alexis Gallegos and Julian Alvarez are picking up the varsity level pretty nicely. Especially since both are ninth graders.
Gallegos scored two goals and added an assist, while Alvarez scored once and recorded an assist in a 4-0 South Suburban Blue victory over Richards on Tuesday.
Gallegos started the scoring just 30 seconds into the match to give T.F. United a quick 1-0 lead.
"We're doing pretty good, it's just some mistakes that have cost us games," Gallegos said. "I guess if we had older players we would have the experience. We have to work through that."
United added goals two and three just 18 minutes into the match to jump out to a 3-0 lead. Alvarez connected off of a Gallegos pass for the second goal of the match. Then, Alvarez returned the favor when he assisted Gallegos for his second goal of the game less than a minute later.
"We're both small kids so it's kind of hard sometimes," Alvarez said of the freshman duo. "Half of our team (are) freshmen. I feel like we're getting better just through practice. Before we didn't know anybody, but now we're getting used to how we play."
It was the first South Suburban Blue win on the season as Thornton Fractional moved to 2-5 overall and 1-2 in SSC Blue play.
Freshman Gabriel Gutierrez had a solid day in net for the United, recording eight saves and picking up the shutout win. Edson Gonzales added a second-half goal to complete the scoring.
"We're playing better," United coach Alejandro Lagunas said. "We've been a little inconsistent but we did a better job defensively and offensively we started off the game with a goal. We played really well today. Hopefully, we can transfer this to Lemont when we play them Thursday."
Thornton Fractional is a young team made up of plenty of freshman. Alvarez feels the team just needs to get in shape while picking up some confidence.
"We need to work on conditioning and taking more shots," Alvarez said. "We lack at taking shots."
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