Top four seeds cruise to semifinals
Academy, Los Almos, St. Pius, Hope win in routs
SANTA ANA PUEBLO — Upsets, well not so much. Close games, eh, not really.
The favorites in the Class 4A girls state soccer tournament Wednesday showed exactly why they were so highly regarded, with all four top seeds advancing with little trouble, setting up No. 1 Albuquerque Academy against No. 4 Los Alamos in a rematch of last season’s Class 5A championship game, while No. 2 Hope Christian meets No. 3 St. Pius.
ST. PIUS 5, GODDARD 0: Sartans (13-6-1) coach David Sullivan has a bit of a premonition about the game.
“What we talked about (Wednesday) was they’re a good team but we have 17 soccer players and if we come out and out-work them, everything would take care of themselves,” said St. Pius coach David Sullivan Jr. “And I told them on Monday, ‘If you come out and out-work that team, 5-0. If not, well.’ Then I told them thanks for making me right.”
St. Pius got goals from five players, with Emma Donlin collecting a goal and two assists. The Rockets (11-8-2) struggled throughout to put much offense.
“I told the girls, my expectations going into this year knowing we were going to be young, and I told my AD, if we get to the semifinals, it’s like winning state,” Sullivan said. “We’re young, 14 freshmen and sophomores out of our top 21. I told the girls, if we can get this game taken care of, tomorrow we’re playing with house money. We have nothing to lose. Everyone has said that the two-seed, they’re the one that should go forward. So there’s no pressure on us. We can play free and with so many youngsters, the Sartans’ game was a little ragged at the outset.”
“We started off a little nervous because we’re a little young,” said junior Hannah Irons. “A few of the girls haven’t played state with us but then we started to get into the groove of things and we just put it away early.”
Elena Resta scored shortly after the opening whistle for St. Pius, but then the Sartans went nearly a half hour before finding the goal again.
“We didn’t think it was going to be that tough,” Irons said. “We knew as long as we worked hard and got first to every ball it was going to be an easy match-up.
We were moving the ball well. We know we’re going to have play harder in the future. I guess it’s a good rest now for our next game.”
LOS ALAMOS 4, AZTEC 0: The Hilltoppers (15-5) broke open a close game in the second half.
“We saw Aztec a couple of weeks ago,” Los Alamos coach Ann Cernicek said. “But we played them on turf at our place so to play them at neutral grass is definitely good for us to see what we could do to get ready for (today).”
Alix Hailey and Alyssa Parker each had a goal an assist for Los Alamos. The Tigers (12-9-1) had several solid scoring chances, but could not find the net. HOPE CHRISTIAN 5, ARTESIA 0: A late goal at the end of the first half was the dagger for the Huskies (17-2-2) over the Bulldogs (12-7-1).
“I think we controlled the game for the most part,” said Hope coach Kristal Coker. “I think we started off a little scared and nervous but once we kind of got going we seemed to be able to handle the ball a little better.” ALBUQUERQUE ACADEMY 9, DEL NORTE 0: Tessa Anderson had three goals for the Chargers (19-2) and the state’s top goal scorer Eliza Mariner took a break from denting the net to dish out a couple of assists in overwhelming the Knights (11-9).