Cats moving on

CLOVIS — In college basketball, they call it the Elite Eight. But even calling it something as ordinary as the quarterfinals is still pretty cool.

Especially for a fifth-seeded Clovis boys soccer team that qualified for the state 5A quarters with Saturday's 3-0 first-round victory over 12th-seeded Santa Fe at blustery Leon Williams Stadium. Most especially for a Wildcats program that didn't even reach states last year.

Now the 'Cats are one of those elite 5A teams, those last eight standing. Heady stuff.

"Yes, it is," Clovis head coach Greg Trujillo said. "Under my tenure, this is the first team that advanced past the first round. So it's pretty exciting to be in this position."

"Oh, it's crazy. I can't believe it," said Wildcats junior fullback Kunal Puppala, who scored his team's first goal - and as it turned out, the game-winner. "I can't put it into words."

"It's what we talked about from Day 1," said Clovis senior striker and co-captain Kade Jones, who assisted Puppala's goal and later scored one of his own. "That was what we wanted to do, move on in states. That's what we set out to do in the summer. We wanted to make it to states and then make a run for it."

Puppala and Jones got that run started when they connected for the first goal less than seven minutes into the game. Jones sent a corner kick from the right side to the center. It bounced through to the middle of the purple Wildcats football end zone, found its way to Puppala, who buried it for a 1-0 Clovis lead.

"I saw Kunal running in," Jones recalled. "I know how good he is in the air. ... It fell down at his feet and he had a good finish."

"I saw it bounce in the box," Puppala said. "I saw it bounce in front of me. We work on it in practice; I just put it away without a second thought."

Clovis' second goal occurred after a handball against Santa Fe resulted in a penalty kick for senior halfback/striker Elias Ortega, who made good on his opportunity with 10:40 left in the first half.

That 2-0 lead remained through intermission and into the second half. And remained. And remained. And remained.

"I knew they were going to come at us in the second half and use that wind in their favor," Trujillo said, but also thought his team played better in the second half than the first, had better build-up.

Defensively, Clovis wasn't allowing Santa Fe to get much going anyway. And then finally, with roughly 4 1/2 minutes left in the second half, the Wildcats padded their lead with a third goal. After a through ball from Ortega, Jones found himself on a breakway. He closed in on the Santa Fe net, ripped a shot that at first clanked off the right post but then richocheted into the left corner of the goal.

"Coach drills it to us that we have to hit that far post," Jones said. "I knew where to place it."

"That sealed the deal," Trujillo said, "because 2-0 is the hardest score to defend."

Minutes after Jones' goal, it was official — Clovis was bound for a quarterfinal match-up against fourth-seeded Albuquerque on the grass field of Bernalillo High School's soccer complex. The game will be Wednesday at 3:30 p.m.

"It's a trip we're looking forward to," Trujillo said.