A Little Means a Lot for Chatsworth

It wasn’t exactly a hard day’s work for Chatsworth High boys’ soccer player Mike Preis, but he’ll take it all the same.

The Chancellors’ petite but prolific scorer did it again Wednesday in a Northwest Valley Conference match, scoring his team’s decisive goal in a 3-1 victory over Kennedy despite under 10 minutes of playing time.

“I told (Coach Desmond Willows) that if we were down he could put me in for five minutes and I’d do the best I could,” said Preis, who has an injured right hamstring but scored his 11th goal of the season to break a 1-1 tie with 10 minutes to play. “There’s a lot of pressure going in and knowing you need to score, but I only touched the ball three times before we got a lucky through ball.”

Preis entered the match minutes after Kennedy’s Robby Shapiro tied the score on an indirect kick taken only seven yards from the Chatsworth goal.

With the Cougars (7-8-2, 4-5) excited and pressing for a go-ahead goal, Preis slipped behind a trio of defenders, collected a pass from Yobani Cruz and beat Kennedy goalie Sean Beattie one-on-one.

“(Preis) has unbelievable speed for a kid his size,” said Willows, who pulled the 5-foot-6, 130-pounder from the game once he emerged from beneath a pile of jubilant teammates. “He’s not going to muscle people off the ball, but if he’s got the ball at his feet and you come up on him, he’s gone.”

Eli Chavarria’s first goal of the season, Preis’ tally and an insurance goal on a penalty kick by Trevor Schmidt provided a tangible reward for a solid Chatsworth defensive effort.

“We play with four defenders across the back and no outside (midfielders), so we try to force teams to go outside in the center of the field and then have to bring the ball into traffic down near the goal,” said Willows, whose team limited Kennedy to five shots on Chancellors’ goalie Guy Klein.

Klein, who became Chatsworth’s starting goalie in mid-January, is 5-0 with two shutouts and three goals against.

Chatsworth (12-3-3, 7-1-1) maintained its hold on first place in the Northwest Valley Conference and Wednesday’s victory was the Chancellors’ fifth in a row.