It’s our first Aggie
sporting event of the season. We come
into it with a somewhat heavy heart after the death of Thalia Chaverria from the Soccer
team last month. (Her cause of death
still hasn’t been publicly disclosed. I’ve
checked about every day.) In a nice gesture, Thalia was voted on to the
C-USA preseason all-league
team. She was also still listed on the
roster today.
I decided to take the day off from work to see the team’s
first game to see if they’d being doing a tribute to her. Otherwise, I might have skipped this
exhibition match. (I’m really asking for
it taking any time off. The day before,
I watched three of my co-workers pass the buck around on who would be covering
for me.) There was no tribute at
tonight’s game, but I had a decent time anyway.
There have been chances of the rain lately. I said I wouldn’t take time off if it was
raining today. There was a welcome stiff
cool breeze blowing around game time, which everyone appreciated. There were also some dark clouds in the area. As the evening wore on, there was rain to the
north and a storm going to the south.
(After halftime, I saw lighting there.)
But other than a few blown drops, no rain spoiled the game.
Some dust from a work area by the field did kick up a
couple of times and blow over the field.
They’re putting in a rock logo on the far side of the field, but it’s
not done yet.
What is done is a new turf football practice field next door. Unfortunately, it makes the soccer field, with a several yellow patches, look even worse. At least it smelled nice like they’d just mowed it.
I don’t think you can really see it in the picture, but there was a partial rainbow over the mountain. So much for my crappy photography.
I put on the 2022
WAC Soccer Aggie championship t-shirt I’d bought last year to wear to its
first match. At the Soccer Complex, the
courtesy table had two poster schedules, but neither were for soccer. They were both Football. One featured
Quarterback Diego Pavia, whom I met
at the Football Rally, and the other
was of Offensive Lineman Shiyazh Pete,
whom I met at Softball. I picked them and I’m still debating where to
put them up.
The Aggies’ Soccer roster had a few hard subtractions from
last year. Star goalie Makenna Gottschalk and star defender Landy Williams have graduated. They’re both playing on the same team in
Europe now. Bella Garcia was also not on the roster. Damn, I’ll miss seeing her lovely self. (I thought I might have seen her working for
the team as an assistant, but I’m not sure it was her.) A lot of the rest of team did return,
including Loma McNeese, who is the preseason
offensive player of the year in conference.
A bit troubling is the goalie depth.
There are two new freshman and a returning redshirt freshman, Valerie Guha, who was the starting
goalie tonight. (She was nice when I met
her last year. She comes all the way from Germany.)
The crowd was a little sparse as I showed up early. There was a little tailgate going on in the
parking lot with a high school girls soccer team (I think). A really good crowd filled in the stands
right when the game started. I ran into
fan Danny and sat him and we chatted before the match up until halftime when he
left. (It was past his bedtime.) He brought up that another college soccer
player had died this week. (I’m sure all
these athlete deaths have nothing to do with getting injected with something
experimental recently.)
The Football team came in and sat around the stands, but
mostly in the southern support stand, which they filled. The Baseball
team might have been there. (I couldn’t
positively identify them.) I noticed a
few girls from the Volleyball team
at the other end of the stands.
First
Half
Danny said that tonight’s opponent, the Cochise College Apaches, were pretty
good at the junior college level.
(They’ll be changing their name to the Guardians or the Commanders
shortly after Twitter discovers them.)
CCA did not start the game off well.
41’ left in the half, Speedy Sydnee
Johnson rushed the net. An Apache
player tried to kick a pass away and put it right into the Apache’s goal. The own goal made it 1-0 Aggies. The offending player visibly grimaced right
after it happened.
40’ Valerie picked up a slow roller at the Aggie net. That was all the work she did for the
match. From here, most of the action
took place in the CCA end of the field.
36’ Loma and an Apache player collided in the box. They both got up slowly and shook hands
afterward. It was generally a friendly
game to this point. The crowd was kind
of quiet for most of the half as the Aggies got off a few shots without success.
18’ Syd passed to Loma in front of the
net and she buried it. The Football team
pounded their stands and started singing.
2-0 Aggies.
16’ Xitlaly
Hernandez collected an out-of-bounds ball from the Football team. For a moment, I thought they might not let
her come back on the field and would keep her.
15’ the Aggies subbed out most of the starters. The subs looked generally taller than the
starters.
12’ Bianca Chacon
took a shot from the wing. Apache goalie
Faye Jones made a great hand save on
the shot. She was briefly hurt and the trainer
looked at her. Faye was holding her back
for the next several minutes. (She’s
from England. Half of their roster is
foreign. The other half is all from
Arizona.) The Football guys posed for
group selfie during the break. They did
give Faye a round of applause for staying in.
9’ Meredith Scott
got a shot past Faye. It seemed like she
should have been able to stop it, but she wasn’t able to dive for it. 3-0 Aggies.
Afterward, Mya Gonzales made
a great fake out move on a defender and the Football team hooted in approval. 8’ Blakley
Edgar made a chip shot over the goalie to make it 4-0. 7’ Meredith (I think, I didn’t get a good
look and the Football team was howling covered the scoring announcement) fired
a missile from outside the box over the goalie.
5-0 Aggies and that was how the half ended.
Second
Half
Karolanne
Lafortune went into the Aggie net to start the second half. The reserves were still in. In fact, I think anyone able to play off the
bench was inserted in. The stands
cleared out a bit with the possibility of approaching weather. Most of the Football team changed ends to sit
behind the opposing goal. If they were
heckling the goalie from there I couldn’t hear them.
There were some Football players sitting behind me that I
could hear more clearly with less crowd noise.
They were repeatedly using a word most people would be unlikely to use
in mixed company. (That word that
rappers like. By the way, I’m reminded that
the pregame hip hop music sucked.) We
did find common ground on a new sub in the game. #22 for the Aggies was tall, pretty, and had
long silver hair. Every time she ran by,
the guys were talking about her (and I was certainly thinking the same
things). There was no #22 on the program
roster. From the website, #22 is Kennedy Herrera, however the girl
pictured had dark hair, so I’m not sure if that was her.
42’ Meredith took a hard check in the CCA goal and went
down. The Football team barked at the
refs. 40’ Megan Ormson took a long shot that was just off and tipped
out. 35’ Apache Sabrina Ramos-Camatta made a nice shot in the middle of the Aggie
box over Karolanne to put them on the board with their first shot on goal. 5-1. I
hope the Aggie girls aren’t going to be forced to run laps until they all puke
tomorrow because of this defensive breakdown.
33’ Mya G answered right back with a bomb from downtown to
make it 6-1. 30’ there was a hurt Apache
on the field. Unfortunately, it took a
minute for the refs to notice her down.
She had to be helped off. 29’ the
Aggie starters came back in, including Mya
Hammack. Admittedly, she’s my favorite
and was now playing on the near side of the field.
21’ Loma soon enough fired one in to make it 7-1. Faye made another great hand save on a follow
up shot right after. Ariana Leamons then made a great move
on the Aggie end of the field with the ball and took it all the way
downfield. The Football players approved
of her great broken field running.
18’ Ariana took a shot that was caught. 16’ Syd took a shot with Ariana running
interference on the goalie, but it was stopped.
15’ an out-of-bounds ball went under the south stands. A Football player there searched and retrieved
it for the players. 13’ Diana Martinez came in as the goalie to
give everyone some play time.
11’ Faye stopped a point blank header. I didn’t see the Aggie player taking the shot
at the far end of the field. 6’ Hannah Draper made a flying header shot
off a corner kick. That was brave and it
was good to make it 8-1. 5’ there was a
cheap shot on Loma. 3’ there was a hard
collision at midfield, but both players were okay. Tempers are fraying by this point. 2’ easy pass by Syd to Loma in front of an
open net, 9-1. 1’ a CCA free kick
outside the Aggie box. The shot went
over the net. This was the first time I
heard Coach Baarts during the game
as he was shouting to position the girls on defense. Diana made a last second save to end the
game. Aggies win 9-1.
The girls took care of business. It was pretty dominating. Shots on goal were 18-1 and corner kicks were
10-1. They’ve got a return engagement game against Portland State and a tough game against
Texas Tech to start the season. After that, it’s Arizona State at home, probably the biggest name the program has ever
attracted here. I’ll probably try to go
to that one, since ASU will likely bring a bunch of fans with them. I tried to get a pic of the team waving to
the crowd, but wasn’t quick enough. I’ll
try it again next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment