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If two out of three ain't bad, then two out of five just might be.

Unless, that is, those two lead immediately to much-needed insurance goals in a Class 4A boys' soccer quarterfinal.

For the East Leopards, in a 3-0 victory over Maple Mountain that advances them to the semifinal round, sophomore Matthew Barker made himself one with the turf on multiple occasions.

He didn't always get a foul called on the visiting Golden Eagles, but it did happen twice — out of five times — when Barker went down with a thud.

And those two occasions led to important security goals for the Leopards on Friday.

"You can't expect to get all of [the calls], but as many as you can," Barker said. "You never want to flop, but you get the calls, you know."

East (14-3-1), in the first-ever meeting between the two schools, got on the board quickly when Hugo "Shorty" Olivera scored just over a minute into the game.

The score was 1-0 when Barker was bowled over near the Maple Mountain goal by an Eagles defender. That led to a free kick, 10 minutes into the second half, that Barker drove into the lower left corner of the net for a 2-0 lead.

"Right as I shot, I saw three and the one split off," said Barker of the wall set up by the Golden Eagles. "I just saw a little opening where I could shoot it."

With 18 minutes left in the game, Barker was tackled inside the box — resulting in a penalty kick by East senior Erick Olivas.

Olivas' shot went off Maple Mountain keeper Spencer Young's hands, then off the crossbar. But it rebounded out to Olivas, who then struck accurately with the follow.

While East extended its lead, the visitors were unable to muster any kind of an offensive threat through the first 25 minutes after intermission.

"I would say they [the Leopards] are a very high pressure team and I'll hand it to them for that," said Maple Mountain coach Mike Klauck, whose team finished 10-2-5 for the season. "And this field is really small and is very conducive to high pressure."

"I thought my holding midfielder, Julio Rodriguez, maybe played his best game today," said East coach Rudy Schenk of his team's defensive effort. "He was really solid. We've got three midfielders (Rodriguez, Olivera and Erick Hulbert), the way we play, and I thought they were really outstanding — all three of them."

In a 3-1 victory over Box Elder on Wednesday in the opening round, Schenk's group was slow to get in gear offensively. The East coach said that the first 20 minutes of Friday's game was exactly the opposite as Olivera found the net quickly.

"Coach told us that they leave a lot of room in the first post, so we played it there and it turned out pretty good," Olivera said. "It was a high ball and I just hit it with the sole of my foot. It came out as a goal, so it was all good." —

East 3, Maple Mountain 0

• East gets a goal from junior Hugo Olivera less than two minutes into the game for an early lead.

• Sophomore Matthew Barker scores the second goal on a free kick, after a Maple Mountain defender was called for a foul on Barker in the second half.

• The scoring is capped by Erick Olivas' rebound shot of his own penalty kick.