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LOS ALAMOS - Clovis' boys soccer team kept rolling Friday afternoon, with lots of help from Elias Ortega.
The senior striker pulled off a hat trick - scoring all three goals in the first half - as the Wildcats took care of Goddard 5-1 in the Louie Cernicek Tournament and improved to 4-0.
Ortega scored in the fifth minute, the 20th and the 38th, helping Clovis take a 3-1 halftime lead.
Kunal Puppalla and Jose Valladares scored Clovis' other two goals.
"It was a good win," Clovis head coach Greg Trujillo said. "It was Goddard's first game of the season. They played pretty direct, they tried to play through-balls over the top, tried to outrun our guys. And after we made some adjustments, they weren't able to get anything going."
Ortega opened the first-half scoring when teammate Lupe Meza connected with a pass on the wing and Ortega outran the Goddard defender, making it 1-0.
15 minutes later, Clovis' Albert DeLeon headed a ball into the middle and after Elias received the pass, he finished to give the Wildcats a 2-0 edge.
However, trouble brewed just a minute later. Goddard keeper Xavier Perez cleared the ball and Clovis' defense over-played it, allowing the Rockets' Gabriel Sanchez to score and narrow the difference to 2-1.
In the 38th minute, though, Ortega gave his team a bit of wiggle room. Teammate Kade Jones set it up, dribbling on the right side of the field, beating two defenders and making the extra pass to Ortega, who received it and scored to hand the 'Cats a 3-1 advantage.
The second half was all Clovis. In the 46th minute, Puppalla headed in an assist from Jones, who had crossed it from the right side. 17 minutes later, Jose Valladares got behind the last Goddard defender and took a feed from Devin Fowler, who could've taken the shot himself. Fowler instead made the extra pass to Valladares, who scored what turned out to be the game's final goal.
Keeper Bruno Armendariz had four saves for the Wildcats, who will play Los Alamos today at 8 a.m.
"They're going to be a touch matchup for us," Trujillo said. "Hopefully we can come out, our scoring opportunites can continue to improve. Maybe we can take the lead and adjust to do whatever we need to do."
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