By Eddie Jones

Special to The News

PORT NECHES — Port Neches-Groves is now 17-1-2 and 10-0 in District 22-5A.

PNG head coach Chad Luttrull received his 201st victory following a 2-1 win Tuesday over Nederland at The Reservation.

It took almost no time for Preston Riggs to get PNG on the board. Both teams continued to attack, but neither team could score a goal due to good goalie play.

“He knew for sure that a ball was going in, in the first half and [PNG’s] goalie made a tremendous stop,” Nederland coach Torrey Gomez said. “I tip my hat off to him.”

After another good stop from PNG’s goalie with about 12 minutes to go in the first half, Nederland’s Hunter Banta set up for a corner kick and scored with finesse.”

“The goal changed the pace of the game,” Luttrull said. “Now [they] were able to play with a sense of urgency.”

In the second half, both teams came out in attack. With 31 minutes left, Nederland (9-8-1, 5-5) received a yellow card after their players pushed one of PNG’s to the ground. A couple of plays later, Chad Davalos almost scored from a corner kick but teammate Sergio Aguilar was right there to help with the easy tip-in to give PNG a 2-1 lead.

“When we got up, we had already talked about the weather and with the wind that, if we got up a goal, in the second half Nederland was playing an additional player in the wind,” Luttrull said. “We just sat back a little bit and played a little bit more defense.”

“Tonight was not our night, and congratulations to them,” Gomez said. “They got us twice this year, and we look forward to repaying them next year.”