San Marcos completed a 3-1 victory against Xalapa in the ninth round of Primera División Apertura on Friday evening. The result puts the hosts five points clear of their visitors in the standings after nine matches played.
O. Villalobos opened the scoring in the sixth minute, and R. Paterson doubled the advantage before half-time with a seventeenth-minute strike. Xalapa had a chance to respond in the fifty-fifth minute when A. Olier missed a penalty, and San Marcos restored a two-goal lead through T. Acevedo in the eighty-sixth minute. Paterson added a third in the eighty-eighth minute to end a barren spell.
And here's the thing about this one — we had given San Marcos a win with forty-five percent confidence before kick-off, and the result followed the pattern we expected. The hosts found no answer from Xalapa's attacks, which simply did not trouble them enough to threaten.
The statistics reflect that dominance. San Marcos registered 140 attacks against Xalapa's 106, and their possession figure of 0.6 meant the visitors could rarely settle into rhythm. The hosts fired 21 shots with ten on target, while Xalapa managed only eight attempts with five on target. Three yellow cards for the visitors compared to one for the hosts tells you where the pressure fell.
By then, the match had settled into a comfortable pattern for San Marcos, who had already lost 0-2 to Real Estelí in their previous outing. The victory extends their recent form, though they remain five points off the top after their four defeats this season.