By Cristine Johnson
Moapa Valley Progress
Moapa Valley High School varsity boys’ soccer had another tough loss last week. On Thursday the Pirates took to the home field against highly ranked SECTA High School from Las Vegas.
“We want to forget the first half and we want to remember the second half,” said Coach Jared Bushman. “We competed with the best team in the state.”
That said, there were still many moments of outstanding play in the first half.
If there was a sign of things to come, that sign came at the beginning of the game. Within two minutes of the kickoff, the first goal was attempted by SECTA. But it was blocked by Pirate goalie, Eric Winzenreid.
Cody Johnson and Aurto Gutierrez, started one of the first offense pushes by Moapa. Gutierrez received the ball from his teammate and quickly passed the ball to Magnus Mortvedt, who sent the ball long, just out of reach of forward, Arnulfo Frias. Frias could not get a foot on it.
Within the first ten minutes of play, it was all offense by SECTA. In those moments of offense, there were some remarkable Pirate saves and defenders who rallied around their goalie.
In the first ten minutes of the game, there were nine SECTA shots on goal. Only one made it in past Winzenried.
Johnson, who had two previous saves, performed an amazing sliding save to keep the score at 0-0.
Just minutes later, another close call was headed out by Pace Maughn. Winzenreid and the defenders were coming up with save after save trying to keep the score to a minimum.
But once SECTA scored their first goal, it was nonstop all the way through to half time. Shot after shot came from the SECTA team. In a short period of five minutes, they had scored three goals and the score was 3-0.
The second attempt at a Pirate offensive drive was broke up by a SECTA player, who made a slide tackle on Frias. The player was issued a yellow card, for the illegal tackle and the penalty kick was taken, only to have the goal defended successfully by the SECTA team.
That would be the last time the ball saw the Pirate side of the field during the first half. It quickly turned into a scoring frenzy by SECTA and soon the score was 6-0.
Many of the shots deflected off of Winzenreid’s hands, just out of reach, and made it into the corners of the goal.
Another break-away by SECTA was broken up on the outside by TC Twelker. This set up a corner kick for SECTA. Jackson Mortensen headed that kick out of the box.
The Pirates were down nine goals by half time, the outcome looked dismal.
When play started back up, SECTA had three shots on the goal within seconds. The Pirates had a few penalties that went their way, but they could not seem to capitalize on the calls made by the officials.
With only 10 minutes left in the game, three more SECTA goals found their way into the net. The game ended with a final score of 12-0.
Any Pirate fan can look for the bad in a game like this because from the start, things just did not go their way. This Pirate team played with effort and heart until the final whistle blew.
On Thursday, September 27, the Pirates will have the home field advantage again against Boulder City. Come out and SUPPORT the Pirate Soccer Team. Play will start at 3:30 p.m. at Mack Lyon Middle School field.
