Amaury Nunes shrugged off a hip flexor injury and scored all of the Fresno Fuego goals in a 2-1 victory against the Southern California Seahorses on Saturday at La Mirada High.
"He's a special player," Fuego coach Scott Alcorn said. "I told Amaury to get himself in position to score goals and we worked around his injury. He played all 90 minutes but was limping in the end."
Nunes scored on a 6-yard blast off a pass from Fabricio Codeceira in the 15th minute and made it 2-0 just behind halftime. Orlando Ramirez faked a shot from 8 yards to draw out the goalie and made a touch pass to Nunes, who put it away.
The Fuego improved to 1-1 in the Premier Development League and the Seahorses fell to 0-2.
Fresno had several players out with injuries, including 2007 PDL Most Valuable Player Pablo Campos (ankle). And by the end, Alcorn had only 10 players on the field after Adam Arteaga received his second yellow card and came off with 38 minutes remaining. The Seahorses scored in the 78th minute, but couldn't get the equalizer past Fuego goalie Ryan Kenny.
"We had five new players to end the game," Alcorn said. "It wasn't pretty, but we got the result. We lost our opener 3-2 and I thought we dominated that one and deserved to win. This time, we probably should have lost. I'm getting out of here before they change the score."
The Fuego travels to Bakersfield Saturday to face the Brigade in a 7:30 p.m. game at Bakersfield Christian High.
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