No high-performance vehicle’s fuel tank is bottomless.
And unfortunately what little juice remained from the previous day’s full-throttle effort wasn’t enough to power the Lady Bobcats up to the pace of Alamosa on Friday, April 24.
Still in the San Luis Valley after playing at 3A/2A Southwestern League rivals Center the afternoon before, Ignacio couldn’t match the Mean Moose on their turf pitch in a 10-0 loss, improving AHS to 10-2, 10-1 in the SWL.
Senior forward Tayleur Hillis scored four goals, freshman Katelyn Gallegos netted three, and seniors Taylor Nye and Marissa Imre each marked once – as did junior Darby Bolt – to give junior Sara Berlinger all the leeway a goalkeeper could ever want.
It was a luxury that neither IHS’ Krissy Velasquez nor CHS’ Jacey Dillion enjoyed during a sunny, but wind-chilled clash upon grassy Viking Field at Center Community Park. Hosting the Lady Cats for Senior Day – six were honored at halftime – Center pressured from the outset and striker Mariela Hernandez netted the all-important first goal in only the fifth minute.
Capitalizing on their abundant personnel, the white-and-blue cashed goal number two in the 12th when forward Faith Stults was able to break in and shoot past Velasquez. Veera Hurttia, an exchange student from Finland, then drilled a left-footed shot from the elbow of Ignacio’s 18-yard box and perfectly into the ‘upper 90’ over Velasquez’s left shoulder for a 3-nil advantage in the 18th.
But abruptly, that was all the scoring either side would enjoy.
Lady Viking seniors Melissa Jimenez, Kaylie Kenison, Sayra Lozano, Melizza Echeverria and Liliana Chaparro (Megan McKibbon was absent, but similarly recognized) were saluted at intermission, but despite a crazy number of second-half tries none found the net as Velasquez saved practically anything within reach and finished the match with an incredible 29 total stops.
CHS, which lost Chaparro to a red card in the 79th minute when she secured IHS’ Tristan Boone in a headlock and was prepared to deliver damage (Boone was shown a yellow, but still removed by head coach Oscar Cosio as a further precaution against retaliation), let fly a ridiculous 46 shots in all, with 33 directed on frame, and also gained seven corner kicks to Ignacio’s none.
Dillion easily smothered the visitors’ lone appearance of a shot late in the engagement, and also was forced to scoop up a first-half ball out of necessity – preventing a sure score – for two total saves.
The Lady Cats dropped to 0-9, 0-9 prior to hosting Bayfield (8-2, 8-2) on Tuesday, April 28, at 7p.m.
Results were unavailable by the Drum’s deadline, as well as those from the team’s trip on April 30 to Pagosa Springs – leaving only the May 1 (rescheduled from April 17th) trek to Telluride still ahead and unaccounted for.