CHS ROUNDUP: Lady Cats post seventh victory

Staff report

RUIDOSO — Even a runner down, Clovis High’s girls had too much for the field on Saturday.

Junior Emily Gonzales tweaked a hamstring and did not finish Saturday’s Ruidoso Invitational cross country meet, but the Lady Wildcats won handily anyway, finishing with 33 team points for a 40-point margin over runnerup Centennial for their seventh win in eight outings this season.

Freshman Kelsey McNaughton was the individual winner with a time of 20 minutes, 32 seconds over five kilometers, and three other Lady Cats finished in the top 10. But with Gonzales going down, sophomore Silvia Velasquez posted a 17th-place finish in 23:22.

“The thing I liked on the girls side was when Silvia saw Emily drop out, she knew she had to pick it up,” CHS coach Mark Bussen said. “She ran very well.”

The Clovis boys were eighth in the event with 164 points. Hobbs won easily with 19 points, followed by Lovington with 62.

Sophomore Harrison Rikel led the Wildcats, placing 23rd in 19:02.

Clovis teams are preparing to host District 4-6A competition on Friday at Ned Houk Park, starting at 3:30 p.m.

link Clovis sophomore Alejandro Medina tries to split Carlsbad defenders Mathew Zumbrun, left, and Jesus Estrada during the first half of Saturday’s District 4-6A boys soccer match at Leon Williams Stadium. The Cavemen scored late and clinched the district title with a 1-0 win over the Wildcats.

“I really thought we did a good job of competing,” Bussen said of Saturday’s event. “Kelsey had a great race.

“We had a hard week of training. Next week we’ll start to taper off a little bit.”

Boys soccer — Clovis played Carlsbad down to the wire on Saturday, but the Cavemen got a late goal from senior midfielder David Soto to claim a 1-0 win at Leon Williams Stadium.

Winding down inside the final two minutes, a Carlsbad shot clanked off the crossbar and Soto was there to clean it up as Carlsbad (11-7-2, 5-0-1) edged Hobbs for the title.

Meantime, the Cats (10-9-1, 2-4-0) were relegated to third place and are unlikely to make the Class 6A state field, coach Greg Trujillo said.

“We got caught standing and waiting for an offsides call (that didn’t come),” Trujillo said of the winning goal. “All it took for us (to lose) is one mistake.”

The Cats had a 5-3 edge over the Cavemen in shots on goal and a 4-1 margin in corner kicks.

“We needed to win this game to have any chance (at state),” Trujillo projected of selections which come today from the NMAA. “We controlled the game for the most part, but when you can’t get any shots in the net, it’s tough.”

Girls soccer — At Carlsbad, the Lady Cats also had a tough time finding the net and dropped a 2-0 decision to the Cavegirls (15-3, 4-2), who finished second in the district to Hobbs.

Clovis (12-6-1, 2-4-0) was coming in on a two-match district winning streak, its first district triumphs in at least 10 years with shutouts at Leon Williams Stadium over Hobbs and Alamogordo.

Hannah Johns scored in the third minute for the Cavegirls, and that stood up until Amelia Bierle converted a penalty kick in the 74th minute.

Senior Shelby Jones had a solid game in goal for Clovis, stopping eight Carlsbad attempts.

“Our girls played hard, and played good,” Lady Cats coach Traci Sievers said. “We had a lot of shots, just not on goal.”