Horsemen advance
Tourney win over Santa Fe Prep gets St. Michael’s to quarterfinal
For nearly 70 minutes of Friday’s state playoff game between boys soccer rivals Santa Fe Prep and St. Michael’s, it seemed as though Prep was destined for the upset.
One shot after another nearly found the back of the net, some closer than others.
In the 44th minute, there was Prep’s Hakan Guiler-Hatch sending a rightfooted shot from point-blank range into the box.
In the 47th minute, there was Mike Vimont’s free run down the side that saw his hurried attempt roll just wide.
In the 55th minute, Jack Tiegler fired a direct kick that was punched off to the side, and just two minutes later Luke Trevisani had his own attempt sail untouched beyond the end line from 25 yards out.
When the final whistle blew,
St. Michael’s was a 2-0 winner on a pair of goals in the final 11 minutes. Each came after a barrage of Blue Griffins close calls, and they send the eighthseeded Horsemen (10-9-2) into next week’s quarterfinals of the Class 1A-3A State Tournament against top-seeded Bosque (15-1-3).
All quarterfinal games will be played at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday at the New Mexico Soccer Tournament Complex in Bernalillo.
“Typical game between us and Santa Fe Prep. One with a lot of chances but nothing really going in for us,”
St. Michael’s head coach Mike Felderwert said.
A big reason for No. 9 seed Prep’s lack of scoring was Horsemen goalkeeper Daniel Dominguez. The sophomore was, at times, spectacular between
the posts. His sprawling save to knock down Guiler-Hatch’s shot was just the appetizer for his stop on Tiegler’s rocket from straight up the field. Dominguez dove to his right and poked the ball along the end line.
“We’re not in this thing without him making those plays,” Felderwert said. “Not bad for a sophomore playing in his first state tournament game.”
With overtime feeling like a distinct possibility, St. Michael’s got the breakthrough Prep never did when Berkeley Reynolds — his bright red cleats making it hard not to notice him — clipped a one-timer feed from Oliver Rosales past the right shoulder of Prep keeper Xander Huasko with 11 minutes left.
Rosales set the entire thing up when he chased a deflected free kick into the corner, dribbled along the end line and threaded a perfect pass to Reynolds.
“[Rosales] likes to make those runs along the line, so I knew it might be something where he could get me the ball,” Reynolds said. “In a scoreless game like that, you have to make the plays when they come to you and, yeah, Oliver made a great pass.”
The Horsemen put the game on ice eight minutes later when freshman Trevor Erickson gathered a loose ball at the mouth of the Prep goal and snuck it past Huasko to make it 2-0. The play originated off a corner kick from Rosales when the ball was knocked down right at the feet of Erickson.
The loss ends a tough season for Prep, which entered the playoffs as the lowest-scoring team in the 1A-3A bracket. The Blue Griffins (4-13) scored just 27 goals all season.
They were shut out 11 times and swept in three meetings with St. Michael’s.
For most of Friday’s game, they did a solid job shutting down the Horsemen’s top two scorers, Wesley Graham and Esteban Rigales.
“Yeah, we’re pretty familiar with those [Prep] guys and we kind of knew what to expect,” Rigales said. “You just have to keep adjusting, you know? Find something that works.”
That adjustment came with Rosales making plays along the sidelines. Both of his assists, as well as a few other near-miss scoring looks, started with his feeds from the wing.
Another move was to have Reynolds slide to the back after scoring his goal. Perhaps one of the most versatile players in the 1A-3A draw, he’s the type of athlete Felderwert can move almost anywhere.
“He’s one of those players who can have an impact no matter where we put him, but after that goal, we put him the back to basically prevent anymore of those looks they were getting,” Felderwert said. “In a game like this, where one goal can kind of open the floodgates, you have to always make little adjustments like that.”
The Horsemen played Bosque twice during the regular season, losing once and earning a draw. The winner of that game will face either Monte del Sol or Hatch Valley in the state semifinals Thursday, also in Bernalillo.