Lady Rams suffer growing pains

History was made Saturday afternoon at the brand new Portales soccer complex as for the first time in several years, Portales fielded a girls soccer team.

The inaugural game wasn’t exactly what the Lady Rams and first-year head coach Traci Sievers wanted though, as the Hobbs junior varsity scored early and often in beating the Lady Rams 12-0.

Hobbs scored twice in the first 20 minutes of the first half, on the way to an 8-0 halftime advantage.

“(In) the first half we made a lot of mistakes,” Sievers said. “(In) the second half, we tried to correct some of the mistakes we were making. One of our goals coming into the second half was to get more shots on the goal. And we had a lot more chances in the second half. We pushed the ball down the field.”

The Lady Rams defense did pull together in the second half, but allowed four goals, to give Hobbs a 12-0 victory.

Senior midfielder Kandace Bergsieker knows the Portales girls can take something positive out of their first game.

“I think we did really good. Even though we lost, we played really good and everyone played together,” Bergsieker said. “We played good (since) it was our first game together, going against a team that has played together for awhile.”

Fellow senior Elizabeth Armstrong agrees.

“We had a little tough time during the beginning. In the second half we actually did pretty good, it was a little bit better,” Armstrong said. “Our forwards did pretty good. They had to go against a pretty good defense in Hobbs.”

Sievers was very pleased that her girls didn’t give up, after Hobbs began to light up the scoreboard.

“(In the) second half, we could have just folded because the score was way out of hand,” Sievers said. “They really didn’t. They came back and they still stayed tough and we tried to work the ball on our half of the field more. The seniors really showed some leadership out there on the field trying to get the rest of the girls to keep going.”

The Rams and the Lady Rams host Carlsbad Tuesday night.

“You always have to be positive,” Bergseiker said. “If you’re not positive, you’re not going to win.”