After delay, Clovis manages tie with Manzano

CLOVIS — Tom Petty once sang "Waiting is the hardest part."

Perhaps his inspiration came from powering through a two-hour lightning delay at a high school soccer game like the one that stretched out Saturday's Manzano-Clovis girls soccer showdown at Leon Williams Stadium.

And, if Petty had been at Saturday's game, he may have tweaked his lyric to say, "Wading is the hardest part" because of torrential downpours that pounded the stadium turf and players once the action had finally resumed.

Through it all, Clovis rallied for a 1-1 tie, a final which held following two overtimes, the Lady Wildcats' second such result in as many games, moving their record to 6-4-2.

"We'll take another (tie) for sure," Clovis head coach Traci Sievers said. "It's better than a loss."

"We're all happy about (the tie)," said Wildcats senior defender Mariah Loya, who forged that stalemate with her game-tying goal less than five minutes after play resumed.

The teams had been scoreless through the first half and nearly 10 minutes of the second. Manzano was threatening, though. At one point early in the second half, Clovis junior midfielder Annie Stone made a strong defensive play to thwart Manzano's attack.

But, with 30:07 to go in the half, Monarchs freshman Bella Munoz punched in a goal, handing Manzano a 1-0 edge.

Most of the offensive chances seemed to be Manzano's, but in the minutes that followed, Clovis was starting to get its offense going, starting to get on the attack more. Then around 4 p.m., a flash of lightning and clap of thunder occurred, forcing the field to be cleared with 24:19 remaining in the second half. NMAA rules needed to be followed, and with lightning continuing here and there, so did the delay.

Time wore on with no resumption. The stadium clock stood frozen, like the clock in "Back To The Future," this clock stuck on 24:19. Both teams were in their locker rooms, left to wait and wait and wait some more.

"They couldn't see the weather," Sievers said. "I was in and out, watching the weather and watching the radar."

"We just talked about what we could do when we came back," Loya said. "But other than that, we listened to music."

And so the waiting continued. The game was actually close to being called.

"We weren't sure right up until two minutes before (resuming)," Sievers said, "because we had put the cutoff time right at 6:00, and it was 5:58, and if there had been another lightning strike, there wouldn't have been enough time."

Finally, they returned to the field. And after warming up again, play at last resumed. Despite the heavy rain, Clovis seemed newly energized. "I think we were more charged up when we came back," Sievers said, "after sitting in the locker room."

And soon after returning, Clovis finally struck for a goal. With little more than 18 1/2 minutes to play in the second half, Loya found herself open in front of Manzano's net, just to the left of keeper Micaiah Malizzo. Loya knocked the ball into the net, then celebrated like she had won the lottery and an Olympic gold medal on the same day.

"Yeah, I'm a happy person," she said. "But that just made my life, oh my gosh. Because we were all down in the locker room, hoping that we would play and not knowing."

Her goal, as it turned out, completed the game's scoring. Though the inclement weather abated and the rest of the game was dry, the remainder of regulation and subsequent pair of 10-minute overtimes were dominated by great defenses halting the few offensive chances there were. Both goalies — Malizzo and Clovis freshman Hanna Nussbaumer — were stout in goal behind those defenses.

Clovis had the last two opportunities. With a minute to go in the second overtime, Wildcats sophomore forward Kiyrha Lilly made a strong kick close to Manzano's goal. And with 15 seconds left, Madison Lynch had a corner kick for the 'Cats. Both plays, however, were well-defended by the Monarchs, and soon, Clovis had emerged with yet another tie. It was the first deadlock for Manzano, whose record is now 5-3-1.

Clovis will visit the state capital on Tuesday for a 4 p.m. game at Santa Fe.