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Thursday, August 28, 2008

Pintos Finish Opening Tournament in Fourth Place

By Harold Smith
Mountain View Telegraph
          The young and the restless.
        The Moriarty High boys soccer team, with 11 freshmen on its 20-player roster, took fourth place in the Pintos' season opening eight-team tournament. Moriarty defeated Española Valley 2-0 in the first round on Friday, then fell 2-1 and 1-0, respectively to Ruidoso and Bosque School, on Saturday.
        Ruidoso beat Deming 3-1 in the tourney finals on Saturday.
        "Overall, I'm very pleased with our young varsity club," said Pinto first-year coach Michael Berroteran. "We're building this team around our freshmen and sophomores."
        However, Moriarty senior Michael Satches got the team's first goal of the season. Satches, a lanky 6-foot-2 and 170 pounds, scored from 10 yards away in the third minute of the Española game to give his team a 1-0 lead.
        "The ball ended up right outside the net," Satches said. "I just ran up on it, got lucky and put it through the goalkeeper's legs."
        Freshman Tyler Allen rounded out the scoring versus the Sundevils. His 20-yard blast swayed the left corner of the net to extend the Pintos' lead to 2-0 in the 73rd minute.
        "We're definitely younger this year," Satches said Friday. "But we're more enthusiastic this year. These guys want to be here, want to play more than they did last year."
        Moriarty concluded the 2007 season with a record of 5-15, 3-7 in District 5-4A.
        "The key this year is just to keep improving with our freshmen and sophomores and build up our numbers for next year," Berroteran said.
        In a rematch of the tourney's inaugural championship game in 2007, Bosque's Bobcats edged Moriarty for third place. The Pintos' seniors did not play.
        "They beat us like 9-1 (actually 8-0) last year," Berroteran said. "Some of our juniors who played last year told the younger players, 'You should be proud. They beat us bad last year with seniors on the team.'"
        Moriarty girls
        The Lady Pintos (2-2) got a big 1-0 victory over visiting Los Alamos (3-1) on Tuesday.
        Scoreless after two 40-minute regulation halves and two 10-minute golden-goal extra periods, the Pintos clinched the win in the post-overtime shootout phase with four penalty kicks without a miss, all booted from 9 yards out into the left side of the net. The Moriarty shooters, who went one-on-one against Hilltopper goalkeeper Jenny Tumas, were Melanie Armijo, Kendra Nixon, Sidney Jones and Heather Buckley.
        "It was a fun game; it was a good game," Pinto coach Craig Nixon said. "This was a very good (Class) 4A win for us."
        Moriarty 'keeper Megan Bond, her gloves extended above her head, blocked the PK attempt by 'Topper Shaina Riciputi, and the try by Los Alamos' Heather Walters banged off the crossbar. Only Clare Charsley-Groffman found pay dirt for LAHS when she squirted the ball into the lower left corner.
        The Pintos outdid the Hilltoppers 4-1 in penalty kicks.
        "I just thought about my teammates (as she stood in the goal's mouth)," said Bond, a 5-7 senior. "They worked hard the whole game to get us to that point. Now, it was my time to do it for them."
        Still, Bond worked, too, during the 100 minutes of full-field play. She had 13 saves, while Tumas had 10.
        Los Alamos had 17 shots on goal to Moriarty's 11, and the Pintos had three corner kicks to the 'Topper's two.
        Most of the first half was played in the middle of the field. Kendra Nixon took a 35-yard free kick that sailed over the crossbar in the 17th minute, and Armijo booted consecutive corner kicks in the 21st minute.
        In the second half, Moriarty's Savannah Baros also kicked a free kick from straightaway downtown that was soft and a little wide in the 51st minute. Los Alamos' intensity increased in the waning minutes of regulation and remained uptempo through the first overtime period.
        Nixon, on at least three occasions, adroitly cleared shot attempts with headers. Armijo threatened on offense and hustled the entire contest.
        "And Chantel Davidson, she stepped up, ran and played hard," Craig Nixon said. "She came into the season in shape and ready to play."
        Davidson is a 5-6 senior defender.
        "This year, I'm just more confident," she said. "And the team has more confidence in me. I think that has a lot to do with it."
        Molly LaRue, a 5-1 senior forward, sat on the bench.
        "We've lost Molly for a while," the coach said. "She's up in the air, until she gets her MRI (on a knee)."
        In the Artesia tournament on Friday and Saturday, the Pintos took on a trio of 5A teams. Moriarty defeated Clovis 8-0, and lost 1-0 twice, to Hobbs and Los Lunas.