Jaguars’ unbeaten streak at 14
Atrisco Heritage needs one more victory to clinch District 1-5A title
RIO RANCHO — It’s time to give Volcano Vista boys soccer coach Billy Thiebaut the credit he’s due.
“Atrisco Heritage,” he said two months ago, “is probably the dark horse that will surprise everyone this year.”
The Jaguars aren’t nationally ranked like undefeated Albuquerque High, and they didn’t play in the state final last year like Cleveland or Mayfield, but Atrisco Heritage is having one of the monster seasons in New Mexico this fall.
Wednesday night, goals from seniors Abraham Lozano and Kenny Rivera propelled the visiting Jags (14-1-1) to a 2-1 victory over the Storm in a District 1-5A matchup.
Atrisco Heritage, at 5-0-1 in district, is the only team in that league without a loss. One more win, Saturday against Volcano Vista or a week from Saturday versus Rio Rancho — the final day of the regular season — will clinch the 1-5A title and a certain top-four seed for the playoffs, which would earn the Jaguars a first-round bye.
“It’s a district where everyone gets mixed up, it seems like,” Atrisco Heritage coach Micah Newman said. “After we come through this district, we feel like we’re ready for whatever.”
The Jaguars on Wednesday night avenged their only regular-season loss, a 2-1 setback to Cleveland in August at the metro tournament. Atrisco Heritage is 13-0-1 since. “We’ve been playing together for a while, and we just have that chemistry,” said Lozano, whose first-half rebound goal in the ninth minute opened the scoring. “We’re used to playing with each other.”
The dozen-plus seniors on this roster not only have been together as Jaguars since they were freshmen, but most of them are club teammates as well.
“We have a very strong senior group of defenders who have come up through the program and have held a strong defense up front, which has allowed us to be super offensive-minded and do the attack we want to do,” Newman said.
Rivera, the Jaguars’ leading goal scorer with 15, upped the edge to 2-0 in the 63rd minute with his blast from just outside the 18--yard box.
Cleveland’s goal in the 80th minute didn’t help much, as the Storm had no time left to mount a desperation run.
The defending state champion Storm (12-5, 2-3) went unbeaten in 1-5A last year — a rarity in this extremely competitive district — but Cleveland sits in fourth place in the district standings with games yet to play against Cibola, Rio Rancho and Volcano Vista over the next six days.