Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Staff photo: Matthew Asher Portales senior Rene Alanis battles a Hope Christian player for ball possession in the first half of Saturday afternoon’s match. Portales and Hope came into this match ranked No. 1 and 2, respectively in Class 1-4A and ended with a 1-1 tie after going into double overtime.
Staff photo: Matthew Asher Portales junior Audrey Christensen can’t get a header in the second half of the Lady Rams game against Hope Christen. The Lady Huskies beat the Lady Rams 10-0.
STAFF WRITER
The Portales Rams soccer team may not have won it’s 10th-straight match to start out the 2016 campaign, but the Rams fought hard to start out District 4-4A play and leave their home pitch with a 1-1 tie against Hope Christian.
With Portales and Hope Christian currently ranked by MaxPreps as first and second, respectively, in Class 1-4A, the big question of this match was if Portales (9-0-1, 0-0-1) was playing with fool’s gold as they had outscored opponents 49-7 coming into this contest. The Rams showed they were up to the task.
Staff photo: Matthew Asher
Portales senior Rene Alanis battles a Hope Christian player for ball possession in the first half of Saturday afternoon’s match. Portales and Hope came into this match ranked No. 1 and 2, respectively in Class 1-4A and ended with a 1-1 tie after going into double overtime.
Jesus Chavez gave Portales an early lead with an assist from Junior Salomon in the 18th minute of the match. Portales would play with the lead until the 71st minute when Hope (7-3-1, 1-0-1) was awarded a penalty kick and Sam Rallis scored the equalizer.
Two more overtime periods couldn’t decide a winner and the Rams left the field with their undefeated season still intact.
“It’s not a win, but a tie is better than a loss,” Rams coach Nathan Dodge said. “We’ve just got to continue to play well in district.”
In Portales’ previous home games the Rams had to play most of the game a man down as the result of a player getting a red card. This game, it was Dodge who got the boot for arguing with an official, and assistant Alex Lopez was in charge for most of the second half.
“He did good,” Dodge said of Lopez. “He got our guys going. He’ll also have them on Tuesday since I have to sit out a game.”
Although a tie with a top-ranked team is nice, Dodge doesn’t believe this should change his team’s outlook on the rest of the season.
“We’ve still got to go (to Albuquerque) and beat Hope,” Dodge said. “The boys played hard and gave it everything they had. We had plenty of opportunities to win in overtime. We possessed the ball well throughout the match, just couldn’t get another goal.”
Staff photo: Matthew Asher
Portales junior Audrey Christensen can’t get a header in the second half of the Lady Rams game against Hope Christen. The Lady Huskies beat the Lady Rams 10-0.
The Lady Rams (5-8, 0-1) played the earlier match of the day against the Lady Huskies and left the field with a 10-0 mercy rule loss, the fifth loss in a row by Portales.
“We played with (Hope) for the first 20 minutes,” Rams coach Ruben Tellez said. “They scored a goal and once again we deflated. We were aggressive in the first half but we collapsed in the second. You’re supposed to take your licks before conference so you can dominate then. I told the girls that hopefully they’ll understand they have to play 80 minutes. Twenty minutes doesn’t win you a game. You have to make adjustments throughout.”
Hope Christian (9-2) scored five goals in each half.
“We just got beat,” Tellez said. “We got out-hustled. Their forwards were beating our defenders in dead sprints. We didn’t have an answer.”
Both the Rams and Lady Rams will stay at home and host district foe Moriarty on Tuesday.
