Bosque School rolls over S.F. Prep
ALBUQUERQUE — Hayden Colfax wore the unofficial mascot for the Santa Fe Prep girls soccer team for this season — an ice pack. The junior striker sat on the bench Wednesday afternoon, icing her back that she tweaked during a key District 2-1A/3A match against Bosque School. Colfax watched, intently but helplessly, through a first half that saw the Lady Bobcats take control of the match with three goals. Not even her return to the field in the second half could prevent the inevitable as Bosque School rolled to a 6-0 win to move into second place in the district past the Blue Griffins.
The Lady Bobcats (11-6-1 overall, 5-3-1 in 2-1A/3A) need only a win at Las Vegas Robertson on Thursday to secure the runner-up spot outright to Albuquerque Sandia Prep. Not that a Lady Cardinals win will have a profound impact on the final standings — Bosque School holds the tiebreaker over Prep (10-5-1, 5-4-1) by virtue of its 1-0-1 record in the head-to-head matchup.
However, Prep is more concerned about getting healthy as its regular season comes to an end. A team that started with 17 varsity players is now down to 13 healthy ones, depending on the day. In a 5-1 win over Robertson on Tuesday, Prep had 12 available players. In a 7-3 loss to the Lady Sundevils on Oct. 16, the Blue Griffins had 11 players as illness sapped whatever depth they had.
“It’s been very fatiguing, especially since we only have 13 players now,” senior Blake Trevisani said of the last month of the season. “We just keep getting injured and sick and we play twice a week. It’s been a lot, but we have that one day off a week and we take that day seriously to recover.”
Against the Lady Bobcats, Prep had
13 players to start before Colfax missed most of the first half nursing her sore back. Blue Griffins head coach Steph Coppola expressed hope that eighthgrader Katherine Bair will return to play during the Class 1A/3A State Soccer Tournament that begins next week.
“We need to regroup and change some things about how we play in getting ready for state,” Coppola said. “If you win that first week, then it’s three matches in a row.”
Playing consecutive intense, physical matches caught up to Prep, and it was apparent 24 minutes into the match when midfielder Raila Jaffer broke through the Blue Griffins back line and took consecutive shots at the goal. The first, Prep goalkeeper Allison Kice blocked; the second Jaffer redirected over the goal.
The reprieve was only temporary: Aviva Elliott was in the right place at the right time when Kice blocked Lauren Hutchinson shot from 20 yards out on the right flank. The rebound came right to Elliott, who redirected it into the open net for her second goal of the day and a 2-0 lead.
Just like the first match between the two teams, Elliott and Abbie Schneider dominated play. The pair combined for two goals and a pair of assists in a 3-all tie in the Sept. 25 duel, and they had five goals between them in the rematch. Schneider closed out the first half with a 25-yard shot that sneaked under the top post and just over Kice’s reach for a 3-0 lead.
Bosque head coach Jacob Cortez wasn’t going to rest on a three-goal lead. In the first match, Prep rallied from a 3-1 deficit to force a tie before darkness halted play and led to a tie.
“We needed to come out with the same intensity we started the last [match] with and finish through the whole thing,” Cortez said.
Schneider heeded that warning, taking a short thru ball from Grace Freed and slotting it into the lower left corner of the goal for a 4-0 lead just two minutes into the second half. Prep never found the right rhythm to regroup, as it played more reactively than aggressively.
“They brought a physical brand of game that we were not expecting,” Coppola said. “It caught us off guard, and we were not anticipating. We were slow to react instead of dictating the game.”
With at least 10 days off before hitting the soccer pitch, Prep can dictate how it gets healthy with the most important part of the season yet to come.