Having mistakenly reported a March 24 junior-varsity road outcome against Ridgway as another one for the varsity – which had already lost 10-0 (the subsequent contest in question, since removed from the varsity’s record, ended 9-nil) – on a day without her primary goalkeeper, Ignacio head coach Alisha Gullion was eager to see how senior RaeAnn Martinez would defend her home pitch against the Lady Demons on Saturday, April 21. And how her whole soccer squad would generally re-focus after a 10-0 loss at Alamosa two days before.
Unfortunately, though the skipper said play had improved, the outcome was the same as RHS followed up a their 10-nil home rout of Center on the 20th with another mercy-rule shutout of the Lady Bobcats.
“We came out sluggish,” Gullion said, “but in the second half we were fired up. It did end up being ten to zero, but the girls have improved so much and you can really see it.”
Ridgway, however, took no chances in letting that show – building a seven-goal lead before halftime at IHS Field. AHS had done likewise on their wind-swept synthetic surface out in the San Luis Valley, getting five shots past eager goalie convert Rylee Pearson before intermission.
She would actually manage 19 total saves as the 3A/2A Intermountain-leading Mean Moose fired 29 shots on frame and attempted 45 in all while not allowing IHS a try on either starting keeper Ashley Ramirez nor temporary first-half switch Alana Hackett. Ramirez did have to make a non-shot save during the first half as an Ignacio pass, too far ahead of its intended recipient, still had pace enough to score if not stopped.
RHS head coach Trevor Peterson had not reported his squad’s statistics by press time, while senior Katie Parkins scored a team-leading four goals in AHS’ Senior Day victory with classmates Hackett and Gabby Imre each netting twice and fellow seniors Jaqueline Palacios and Katy Gallegos each once.
Alamosa further improved to 9-1 overall, 7-0 against both sides of the circuit with a 2-1 defeat of Bayfield on the 21st, while Ridgway rose to 5-4, 4-3 prior to hosting Montezuma-Cortez (2-10, 2-10) on 4/24.
The Moose were to host Pagosa Springs (5-5, 5-2), while at 7 p.m. that evening the Lady ’Cats (corrected records of 0-11, 0-11 as of press time – an 8-0 loss to M-CHS on March 13 was also shown to be a JV outcome, coming five days after IHS’ varsity began the season losing 8-0 to the Lady Panthers) were to visit BHS.
Ignacio will travel to M-CHS on May 3 (4 p.m. kickoff), then visit DNHS the next day for an 11 a.m. start.