Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Staff photo: Matthew Asher Portales’ Julian Tellez, 13, has a header opportunity blocked by Desert Academy goalie Dylan Moon in the first half of Saturday’s first round of the Class 1/4A tournament. Portales would score eight goals in the second half for an 8-1 win and advance to the quarterfinals.
Staff photo: Matthew Asher Pedro Perea, 10, is bear-hugged by a Portales teammate following Perea’s goal to take a 2-1 lead in the second half. Perea would finish with four goals and the Rams will face Bosque in the next round of the state tournament.
STAFF WRITER
After falling behind in the opening minutes, the Portales boys soccer team avoided an upset loss in the first round of the Class 1/4A soccer playoffs as it continued to attack the Desert Academy keeper throughout the match and ended up with an 8-1 victory Saturday afternoon at home.
Staff photo: Matthew Asher
Portales’ Julian Tellez, 13, has a header opportunity blocked by Desert Academy goalie Dylan Moon in the first half of Saturday’s first round of the Class 1/4A tournament. Portales would score eight goals in the second half for an 8-1 win and advance to the quarterfinals.
It was a tale of two halves as District 4-4A champion Portales (15-3-1) spent the majority of the first half in attack mode, but couldn’t get anything in the net as Desert Academy (7-9-2) goalkeeper Dylan Moon played like a brick wall, turning back four point-blank shots to preserve a 1-0 Wildcats lead going into the break.
Desert Academy took the lead just three minutes into the game when the Wildcats’ Noa Noa Laget-Hudson scored on a breakaway goal as a result of a busted Portales defensive alignment. Desert Academy would get just one more shot on goal during the match.
“I told them to just keep playing,” Rams coach Nathan Dodge said during his halftime speech. “I knew once we’d score one goal, we’d get a few more.”
A few goals was an understatement as the Rams ended up with eight goals in total, all coming in the second half. The equalizer to tie the game at 1 came in the 46th minute after Moon once again made another great save. However, he couldn’t hold on to the ball and the Rams’ Junior Salomon punched home the rebound.
“We worked well as a team for that one,” Salomon said. “It was a team effort on that goal. It just happened to be me getting the shot. I knew that goal would pick up the intensity of our team. It was the little boost we needed.”
Less than 30 seconds later, Portales took the lead as Pedro Perea scored his first of four goals. The Rams added a third goal 90 seconds later, courtesy of Freddy Exiga for three goals in about two minutes.
Staff photo: Matthew Asher
Pedro Perea, 10, is bear-hugged by a Portales teammate following Perea’s goal to take a 2-1 lead in the second half. Perea would finish with four goals
and the Rams will face Bosque in the next round of the state tournament.
“I knew we could keep on scoring,” Perea said of his first goal. “We had time to score more. We wanted to make sure we could add more goals for the win.”
From that point on, Portales imposed its will against Desert Academy. As in the first half, the Rams spent most of the game pressuring the Wildcat defense, the difference was they scored on all but two of their second-half shots, finishing with 14 shots on goal and seven corner kicks.
Also scoring for the Rams were Omar Nunez, off a penalty kick, and Lesther Olivia Andrade.
The Rams travel to the Bernalillo Soccer Complex in Bernalillo, New Mexico for their quarterfinals match against the Class 5-4A champion Bosque Broncos (11-7-2) with a 1 p.m. start.
