Arteaga's hat trick rallies FC Sequoia past Fusion

FC Sequoia’s Adam Arteaga buried a 25-yard bomb in the 14th minute of the fourth quarter — his third goal of the night — to put his team up ahead, 6-5, Saturday against division rival San Diego.

The midfielder then put an exclamation point on his hat trick by performing the save of the evening — a bicycle kick that prevented the Fusion from tying the game in the final minute.

All this done with a left foot missing three toes.

Arteaga suffered through a childhood farming accident that severed his little toe and the next two smallest toes were later amputated. After the game, blood had soaked through both socks, the right foot a result of blistering in his new shoes.

“I love this game,” said Arteaga, who favors his left foot. “It’s my passion.”

Arteaga was visibly frustrated in the third quarter after his team had relinquished a lead it held from the get-go.

“They were smart; obviously they knew how to play the game,” said Arteaga of a six-man Fusion squad without a single backup. “We came out in that third quarter maybe a little too relaxed. We got overconfident.”

Sequoia coach Miguel Baez spoke a few words of encouragement and his club promptly returned to form, scoring three goals in the final period to come within one game of the division-leading Fusion.

“At the beginning, we were just playing their game,” Baez said. “We were moving the ball around and couldn’t find an open space. I told them to stay with one player in the back and go one-on-one the rest of the field. It was risky, but it helped us get the win.”

The Fusion had taken a 4-3 lead late in the third behind a penalty kick from Diego Rovira, but it took Arteaga less than four minutes into the fourth to tie it up off a 15-yard shot that ricocheted off a Fusion defender, fooling the keeper just enough to let it slide.

San Diego regained the lead, 5-4, in the eighth minute when Scott Martin scored in similar fashion.

Sporting a full roster over the short-handed Fusion, Sequoia finally wore down their opponents with a relentless off-the-glass attack that culminated in FC’s Eddie Gutierrez’s second goal in the 10th minute. The speedy forward corraled a pass off the wall from teammate Robert Gonzalez, spun around and kicked it in before Edwards could react.

“We’ve been practicing scoring off the rebounds,” Baez said. “Eddie is one of our best players and even though Adam doesn’t score a lot, he stepped up with three tonight.”

Arteaga took Baez’s message before the quarter to heart.

“He calmed us down and told us we’ve gotta be patient,” Arteaga said. “15 minutes is a lot of time left.”

Just moments after his third goal, Arteaga raced back on defense as San Diego’s Damien Quinn, who had already scored one goal in the first half, juked an FC defender and lured keeper Jose Miguel Beltran out of the box.

Quinn sent a slow lob shot over Beltran’s head that would’ve easily scored had Arteaga not been there. Since the ball was still at shoulder-height, Arteaga was forced to fall back for a bicycle kick.

“It was just pure reaction I was able to do that and get it out of there,” Areaga said. “That defensive play I would honestly say was my highlight of the game just because it gave us the ‘W.’”

Baez called the win his team’s best of the season after they had lost to the Fusion, 4-2, earlier this season. San Diego have won four of the past five championships.