Despite no field, Tierra Encantada earns playoff spot
Tierra Encantada will take whatever place it can find on which its boys soccer team can practice.
The blacktop of a parking lot or the small patch of grass off to the side of the school entrance.
The concrete surface of a roller-hockey court or the lumpy grass field at Herb Martinez Park.
Even the FieldTurf of Salvador Perez Park for one day out of the week.
Time, place or manner seem not to matter for for the 15 members of Tierra Encantada’s boys soccer team. All the Alacranes care about is that they get to practice and play.
“Playing out here on the cement,” Tierra Encantada senior Mario Suarez said, motioning at the roller-hockey court, ” and playing over there [on the grass] where they have a lot of holes, we overcome that already. We might not have a big field, but the thing is, all you need to do is touch a ball anywhere.”
This devil-may-care approach toward their sport has paid off handsomely and quickly. Tierra Encantada needed just two years of varsity play to win its first district title in any sport, and became the second school program to reach the postseason in its sport.
The Alacranes, the District 1-1A/4A champions, earned the 12th and final seed in the Class 1A/4A State Tournament on Sunday and a short road match at No. 5 Santa Fe Prep, the defending state champion. At 4 p.m. Friday at Sun Mountain Field, The Alacranes will get their first taste of state tournament soccer, but they aren’t merely satisfied with just “being here,” as secondyear head coach Kurtis Montoya put it.
“I’m not a guy who’s just going to settle for state,” Montoya said. “I don’t care if we’re the 12th seed or what. I’m a guy who thinks, ‘Go big or go home.’ That’s what I’m telling the guys, I’m not going to be satisfied with, ‘Hey, we made it to state!’ I wanna do something. I want to put our names on the map.”
Montoya’s dedication is as clear as the cast he wears on his left foot. He injured it playing in an adult soccer league in September, and has gotten around on a knee scooter since then. His toughness is only matched by his honesty with his players.
“He’s straight-forward with what has to be done,” junior Hugo Gutierrez said.”He doesn’t go around it — he’s straight to the point. ‘This is what we need to do and this is how we’re gonna do it.’”
That approach almost got Tierra Encantada to the state tournament its inaugural year in 2016. The Alacranes went 1-3 in 1-1A/4A play, but all three losses came by just one goal and two were in overtime. Knowing they weren’t far off from Desert Academy and Rehoboth emboldened them for this season.
“It taught everybody a lesson that we can learn from our failures,” Juarez said.
Tierra Encantada’s performance last year, though, also helped it with scheduling for this season. last year, the Alacranes played just nine times, and two of those matches were against the St. Michael’s and Las Vegas Robertson junior varsity teams.
This year, they only faced one JV team (Santa Fe Waldorf ) and played the Cardinals, Capital, Portales and Bernalillo — all state qualifiers.
“I think it helped them,” Montoya said. “The bigger the school, they didn’t fold under the pressure. At Capital, it was 2-0, and they scored both in the second half. It was competitive the whole time. We missed some easy goals, so they know they can compete with the best in Santa Fe, for sure.”
Competing is one thing, winning is another. Tierra Encantada finished the season tied with Rehoboth for the district lead at 3-1, and the teams split their two matches by one-goal margins. The tiebreaker to determine the 1-1A/4A champion — and the lone state tournament representative — came down to their margin of victory against Desert Academy. Both teams beat the Wildcats by three in the first go-around, but the Alacranes’ 6-1 win over the Wildcats in their district finale on Oct. 17 trumped the Lynx’s 4-1 win three days later.
“It was a really big feeling,” Juarez said. “I always dreamed of making it to state. My perspective, was that it was incredible because we’re a small school. Everybody notices us as this dumb little school.”
Tierra Encantada’s state tournament berth is also a victory for soccer in Santa Fe, as that makes all seven boys programs in the city reaching the postseason in the past six seasons. Juarez, who started his prep career at Santa Fe High as an eighth grader, said the growth of La Liga and Rio Rapids Northern Soccer clubs has helped raise the level of play overall in the city.
Tierra Encantada has several players who play in La Liga in the off-season, and they have made an impression in a short time.
“That’s perfect for them, to keep learning,” Juarez said. “And they still got a long year [of playing ahead]. This is my last year, and I am trying my best to see if we can get further.”
Now that the Alacranes are a part of “The Show,” they might as well turn a few heads while they’re a part of it.