Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Fair to say it was a good, and interesting, week for the Clovis boys soccer team.
Heading into Saturday’s late-afternoon game against Artesia, the Wildcats had gone 2-for-2 this past week, shutting out Portales 3-0 on Tuesday night and walloping Goddard 6-2 on Thursday night, improving to 6-2-1 in the process.
That was the good part. Now the interesting part.
Tuesday’s game against the Rams was originally scheduled for Portales High School, but according to what Clovis head coach Greg Trujillo was told, the sprinkler system had oversaturated the field. And Trujillo believed it, after getting a first-hand sense of that field.
“If you stood on it,” he said, “you’d sink in about three inches.”
So, the game was shifted to Clovis. “They were trying to avoid injury,” Trujillo said.
When they finally played the contest that Trujillo says ended shortly before 10 p.m., the Wildcats received a pair of goals from Lupe Meza and another from Diego Perez. Keeper Bruno Armendariz recorded the shutout.
Two nights later, Clovis traveled to Roswell for a clash with Goddard. It was still a close one at halftime with Carlos Valdivia scoring early in the first half (second minute) and Goddard’s Malachai Elliot scoring late (36th), and it was 1-1 at intermission.
But in the fifth minute of the second half, 45th overall, Clovis went back up for good, as Jorge Barraza beat Goddard keeper Xavier Perez for a goal that made it 2-1.
Five minutes later, Albert DeLeon connected from outside the 18-yard line to give Clovis a 3-1 edge. A minute after that, Meza was set up nicely by Valdivia and got one past by Perez for a three-goal Wildcat lead.
Only three more minutes had gone by when a ball landed at Cody Little’s feet and he put it away in the net’s upper right corner for a 5-1 Clovis advantage. And in the 65th minute, DeLeon made good on a penalty kick to complete the Wildcat scoring.
Goddard added a too-little-too-late goal in the 68th minute. Still, when it was over Clovis had outscored the Rockets 5-1 over the final 40.
“Our play got better in the second half,” Trujillo said. “We got caught up a little in playing their game, through-ball (in the first half), but we started working the wings a little and it opened up the game completely.”
Following Saturday’s game, Clovis was scheduled to play road contests at Artesia (this Friday) and Valley (this Saturday). The Wildcats will finally play another official home game on Sept. 24 against Portales at 6 p.m.
