Hermiston midfielder Frankie Garcia (right) scored the game's first of six goals on a sensational free-kick effort.

By David Bashore

Herald sports reporter

Hermiston A nine-minute second half blitz by The Dalles-Wahtonka yielded four goals and turned the game on its head as the Eagle Indians stunned Hermiston 4-2 on Tuesday afternoon.

The result vaulted The Dalles-Wahtonka into a four-way deadlock for second place in the Intermountain Conference on four points, tied with Hermiston, Mountain View and Madras behind table-topping Bend.

All six goals were netted in the second half in a complete turnaround from a first-half bearing few realistic chances at goal.

The most promising of those chances fell to The Dalles-Wahtonka late on in the opening period, when a point-blank shot forced Bulldog keeper Luis Duarte into a sensational save to keep the scoresheet blank at half-time.

Hermiston coped with the Eagle Indians’ pace just enough to get by in the first half, but head coach Tim McCreary was far from pleased with the performance both in the first half and the game in total.

“We just did not come ready to play today, and we did not play well,” McCreary said.

Frankie Garcia, who stepped in once more for injured captain Beto Garcia whose foot injury has cast the rest of his season in doubt at the attacking midfielder position, kick-started the goal-fest on a spectacular free-kick effort in the 58th minute.

The junior drew a foul on the right edge of the area and caught keeper David Eldridge off his line, looping the free kick into the top-left corner of the goal.

The Dalles-Wahtonka won an opportunity to level in the 63rd minute when forward Oscar Nunez won a perhaps-dubious penalty kick after falling to the ground over a sliding Oscar Avila, who appeared to cleanly win the ball.

McCreary suggested that Nunez might have embellished the severity of Avila’s challenge to earn the penalty by diving, but also admitted that the defender put himself at risk of conceding the spot-kick by going to ground in the area.

“We’ve told our defenders that they can’t give the referee an opportunity to call things like that,” McCreary said.

Avila was vindicated, however, when Eagle Indian midfielder Jorge Esiquio cannoned the penalty off the woodwork, keeping Hermiston in the lead.

Nunez converted four minutes later to square the match, though he appeared to be in an offside position, only to have Ezequiel Hernandez give the Bulldogs the lead again in the 69th minute when he rifled in an inviting Luis Ortiz cross.

Esiquio atoned for his penalty miss two minutes later when he leveled the match a second time, and then scored an impressive free-kick goal in the 73rd to give The Dalles-Wahtonka the lead for good.

After winning what appeared to be a soft foul, Esiquio caught Duarte off his line and sent a well-placed effort just under the bar, as the keeper could only palm at the ball in vain.

That proved to be the crushing blow for Hermiston as they could not recover, and Nunez made the final margin with a goal in the 73rd minute.

Hermiston travels for the final time on Saturday, when they face Madras.