By Dave Belcher

Moapa Valley Progress

Photo by Jessica Robison.

The greatest three minutes in Pirate Soccer history took place a week ago on the home field on Monday, October 10 against Shadow Ridge High School.

The Mustangs had taken a 3-0 lead into half time, completely dominating over the Pirates.

But the second half saw a stalemate as the Pirate defense buckled down and kept the Mustangs in check.

Finally, with eight minutes to go Manny Lindaur scored the first goal of the game for the Pirates with an assist from Arturo Gutierrez. This broke the ice and started a comeback featuring some of the greatest individual performances in Moapa Soccer history.

Dylan Smith moving to the goal received a pass from Gutierrez and with 2:45 remaining in the match, Smith scored.

Eighteen seconds later lightning struck. The same combination scored again: Gutierrez to Smith; tying the score now at 3-3.

Then it took just over a minute for thunder to follow the lightning. Smith took a pass from Lawrence Villezcas and buried the game winner into the net sending the Pirate team and fanatics into the air in celebration, then in disbelief.

The Shadow Ridge team was stunned. The shock wave left most of Mustangs standing with a few on the ground wondering what had just happened. The score board displayed the damage done by the storm, 4-3 Moapa.

On Tuesday, October 11, Adelson School beat the Pirates 3-2 at Adelson.

On Wednesday, October 12, Tom Hoffman scored Moapa’s only goal in Clark’s 4-1 victory over the Pirates.

After a long week the Pirates finished it on Friday with a 4-1 loss to Rancho. Irving Torrez was the Pirates lone scorer in that game.