Friday, October 13, 2017

NM State Aggies vs Arizona Christian Firestorm Soccer 10-2-17



I’m on another vacation week.  While I’m off until next Tuesday, the Aggie Soccer girls will be working their tails off with three games in seven days, of which I hope to attend all of them.  In honesty, I didn’t pick this week for the soccer.  The soccer scheduling was just a coincidence.  Otherwise, I probably would have picked a week with a mid-week volleyball game.      

It was a beautiful day without literally a cloud in the sky.  The announced game time temperature was 87 degrees.  It was warm, but a steady, light breeze kept it from being miserable.  The 2:00pm start put the sun behind the stands and easy to cover up from.  It was a light crowd of friends, family, hardcore fans (is that me now?), and the old man.  Mario Moccia said on the Coaches’ show that the soccer team had already exceeded attendance goals for the season, probably due mostly to having 1,600 fans hosting UTEP and UNM.  

I have to admit there were several handsome young men there.  Movie star handsome even.  They may have been with the baseball team.  (I thought I heard some hitting going on at the nearby ballpark when I came in.)  A couple of members of the softball team were there.  I hesitate to name them, since I might be wrong.  It wasn’t Kelsey Horton or Kayla Green, which might have motivated me to go over and chat.  There weren’t any kids present.  This had the bad side effect of not having any ball kids to shag the balls down, especially behind the goals.  At one point, a goalie had to go get a ball that went up the hill behind the north goal.  The referee had to ask someone to put balls by the goals.  A security officer was retrieving balls in the second half.  Given the number of staff present at the match, this was an embarrassingly overlooked game detail.     

Introductions were interesting.  The referees were introduced.  I gave them polite applause, as I usually do, and was the only one doing so.  There were few enough people there that they actually acknowledged me.  (These guys did a pretty good job this afternoon, if lack of heckling from the crowd is a good indicator.)  The Arizona Christian (ACU) Firestorm goalie was the obvious standout in the lineup.  Tahlia Miears was listed a 6’ on the program (and thank you to whoever does the stat-filled soccer program and please takeover doing the volleyball programs), but she was literally a head taller than everyone else on field, including the four male referees.  The rest of the team looked fairly small and wiry. 

On the Aggie side, keeper, Dmitri Fong, was back.  From the program schedule, she must have been back since the SMU game last week.  Audriana (Audrey) Chavez, Rebecca (Becca) Mazzie, and Devin Hart started.  I didn’t recognize the rest.  Aileen Galicia was not in.  Reilly Marks was still not in uniform.  But here’s the main question for this Monday afternoon game: Why weren’t these girls in class?

First Half
You couldn’t miss the change in the net.  Dmitri was very vocal with the team and took charge.  Early in the half, she came out of the box in a risky-looking move to kick the ball away, and did so without any hesitation.  Dmitri’s a red-shirt freshman with a lot of leadership qualities.  It was also quiet enough with the small crowd to also hear the Aggie bench occasionally pipe up with an “Aggie Up!” cheer.  There was more chatter on the field too.  At one point, I was startled by a guy’s voice yelling across the field.  It was the coach, soft-spoken, Freddy Delgado.  The old man was also chiming in with a taunting, “Aggie Ball!  Aggie Ball!” 

Another change with the Aggies was that they were much more aggressive than I’ve seen them.  They were offsides on a good chance with 36’ left in the half.  Their effort paid off at 35’ on a Devin Hart goal.  It was a good, coordinated attack in front of the net that the goalie had little chance on.  1-0 Aggies.  ACU drove right back down the field and just missed on a shot in front of the net at 31’.  The Aggies got in a couple of weak shots at 27’.  An ACU breakaway came back on the second one.  A foul was committed in the box to stop the shot.  The penalty kick missed wide right.  Whew!  Dmitri did have it tracked right.  A couple of minutes later, she made another risky kick with opposing players around her.  She has no fear.

22’ the Aggies got a couple of corners in a row, but nothing came of them.  24’ Mariah Baker (and her great hair, as Jim Rome would say, “What a head of lettuce,”) and Tuti Tirado came in as subs.  Either one or the both of them got wolf-whistled as they came on.  That had to be embarrassing and provocative for the girls.  17’ Becca got in a shot that was turned away.  That started a two-on-one ACU breakaway that was broken up.  14’ had another such breakaway.  Dmitri screamed at the girls after that.  13’ an ACU free kick from outside the box just went high and wide.  8’ Dmitri came out and stopped a breakaway.  The Aggies made a good attempt inside the last minute, but it was 1-0 going into halftime. 

Halftime
The Aggies were up 6 shots to 1 on goal, so they were pretty aggressive.  The Firestorm was still getting their chances.  Two fans behind me that I’m tagging as Angry Mom and Angry Dad, didn’t find much to criticize this half.  The girls may have been yelling at each other more.     

There wasn’t any halftime entertainment, not even any kids playing around the goals.  However, there was a student giveaway.  A tandem stadium seat set with an umbrella was brought out.  The PA said, “Make some noise and show us your moves, and this is yours!”  A couple of the handsome guys jumped up and yelled and sort of danced.  The set was handed to them without any delay.  They took it right out on the field and sat on it.  This was actually a heck of a gift, worth $100 (as per a staff member’s comment).  Thank you Gatorade for your sponsorship. 

Second Half
The Aggies started right off attacking (as did some bugs swarming around my face).  Their second attack at 43’ left in the half had Devin Hart again in front of the goal in a one-on-one.  Goooooal!  2-0 Aggies.  Becca and Devin made a couple of more shots over the next few minutes.  It was an onslaught.  34’ Audrey made a great header into the net, but it was waved off on an offsides.  She was rubbing her head afterward. 

Okay, suddenly out of nowhere ACU had their own one-on-one in the Aggie end.  Dmitri stayed back on this one, but the ball flew into the top corner, out of reach.  27’ Veronica Cruz made it 2-1 Aggies.  The Aggies started stumbling on offense and falling back into passing the ball backward and not facing the opponent’s goal.  Then it happened, the moment I’d been waiting for.  Angry Mom shouted out to Audrey, “Come on, #3!”  At which point, Audrey turned around, looked up at the stands, shrugged her shoulders and threw up her hands, What!  It was worth showing up just for that.  I kind of presume these two knew each other in some way.

19’ Tuti came in for Devin.  I was sort of hoping to see a hat trick.  A minute later, Tuti was almost fist-fighting with a much taller player moving the ball into the ACU end.  15’ the ACU goalie got caught outside of the net, but the Aggies couldn’t finish the play.  12’ ACU caught Dmitri out of the net.  The ball was kicked away, but not cleared.  With a second chance in front of the net, Dmitri had no chance and Marisa Ortiz tied it at 2

Devin was put right back in.  6’ the tall ACU goalie kicked one over the stands.  I’d noticed that another player was actually doing all of static goalie kicks for her this half.  Maybe there was a reason for that.  4’ an Aggie player got carded for rough play by the sidelines, didn’t see who.  The Aggies picked up the intensity.  3’ Becca made a shot on goal.  1’ Devin passed to Audrey for another good shot.  Just before time expired, Devin got off a shot outside box that just missed.  Shots on goal at regulation: Aggies 13, Firestorm 7. 

Overtime 1
By this point, my butt was getting sore, even with a seat and a cushion.  Extra soccer was not a welcome development.  One minute in and the match almost ended.  Dmitri came out to stop a shot and the ball got past her.  Another player managed to kick it out.  7’ Devin to Audrey again for a good chance in front of the goal.  Finally, 5’ Audrey in the box repeats her header shot from earlier and this time it was good.  Goooooal!  And a 3-2 Aggie win!  And she paid the price.  Audrey got leveled to the ground after the shot.  The girls went over to congratulate her and quickly called for the trainers and the coach.  After about 10 minutes, she was finally able to get up and could only painfully hobble. 

The rest of the team came to midfield while Audrey was still down.  They thanked the fans, while still looking off to the side at her prone form.  The handsome guys stuck around, and I got impression they might have girlfriends on the team.  I didn’t stick around to find out.  I did see Aileen.  She was limping with an ankle heavily wrapped.  Two good players down and two more games this week.  I never even saw Cristina Bertoldo.  If there’s one thing that could drive me away from watching women’s sports, it’s seeing these girls get injured.  Well, conference play starts Friday afternoon.  I hope to be there.



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