Heart not enough for St. Michael’s
Sandia Prep’s size, talent trumps Lady Horsemen in lopsided loss
If soccer matches were decided by heart, Sandia Prep head girls coach Matthew Westerlund said, it would be no contest.
“The heart that team showed is something, regardless of the result,” Westerlund said of the St. Michael’s girls soccer team. “Every student-athlete and every person that loves sports should take and build upon it.”
Alas, heart alone cannot put goals on the scoreboard. For most of the 2023 season, the Lady Horsemen relied on a combination of hard work, team chemistry and heart to overcome a lack of talent, injuries and a shrinking roster. It just wasn’t nearly enough when playing a team as deep and talented as the top-seeded Lady Sundevils.
Led by a pair of goals and a pair of assists from Rylie Elison, Sandia Prep routed the Lady Horsemen 5-1 in a Class 1A/3A girls soccer semifinal Tuesday at The Durán Family Soccer and Track Stadium. With the win, the Lady Sundevils advance to their third straight finals and their seventh in the past eight seasons.
Sandia Prep has been so dominant this season, recording 15 shutouts in its 19 wins and allowing just three goals to 1A/3A teams. The Lady Horsemen happen to have two of them, however.
St. Michael’s pulled it off in the final minutes of the first half on its only shot through the first 75 minutes. After Sophia Miera made a run down the right sideline and was tackled just outside the penalty box, senior midfielder Jada Lujan lofted a perfectly placed shot that sailed over Taylor Calkins’ outstretched arms and into the upper half of the goal.
The goal cut the Sandia Prep lead to 3-1 in the 39th minute and gave St. Michael’s a ray of hope that it might be able to put a scare into its longtime rival that had dispatched the Lady Horsemen in the semifinals and finals during the two prior seasons.
“We were just trying to keep the score as low as we could so that we would have a chance or at least have it be a good game,” Lujan said.
The Lady Sundevils responded by raining on that last bit of sunshine in the opening minutes of the second half. When Elison found Camryn McWilliams alone on the left side of the net, the freshman
finished the play with a one-touch shot into the lower left of the net and the margin grew to to 4-1.
After scoring two goals in the first half, Elison added a pair of assists to her total in the first 15 minutes of the second half before exiting the field. She exemplified the speed, skill and size advantage Sandia Prep held over St. Michael’s.
That was clear on the Lady Sundevils’ opening goal when Penny Hashagen crossed a pass to Bridget Hurley, who headed it into the lower half of the goal in the eighth minute.
“They’re just a great team,” St. Michael’s junior defender Lauren Patten said. “They all know their soccer really well, but I do have to give props to our back line. They played their hardest and did the best we could.”
Still, Sandia Prep controlled possession for most of the match, putting together five or six passes and using its speed in Elison, Hashagen and Hurley to frustrate the Lady Horsemen.
Dominguez said she found herself out of position a couple of times because she was uncertain when to come out of goal to assist the defense and when to stay back and protect the net.
“When I would go, I’d be a little too late, so I’d just stop,” Dominguez said. “It was just hard sometimes.”
The challenge of keeping up with the Lady Sundevils was made harder by injuries and the absence of key returning players, which was the common thread throughout the season. Mia Tokoroyama had a lingering knee injury, then midfielder Tara Schneider suffered a stress fracture in her right ankle that never completely healed as she returned to the pitch after a five-week absence.
The theme continued into the semifinal. Schneider reaggravated her injury in a 5-1 quarterfinal win over Santa Fe Prep and sat on the bench. Patten missed the last 35 minutes after taking a Hashagen cross to the side of her head, adding her ears were still ringing after the match.
Westerlund saw how those absences affected St. Michael’s throughout the season, especially in two Lady Sundevils wins in September. Still, he saw a team that never quit.
When Lujan scored on a direct kick minutes into Sandia Prep’s 6-1 win on Sept. 23, Westerlund used it as a teaching moment for his team, especially since the Lady Horsemen had just 11 players for that contest.
“That’s a game where you need to compliment their character,” Westerlund said. “Everyone of my players looked at me like, ‘What the heck are you talking about?’ I was like, ‘One-hundred percent. Every one of those players is working to the final whistle and that is something you need to take as a learning experience as a student-athlete.’ ”
St. Michael’s head coach Alfonso Camarena said the goal in the offseason is to recruit more players. He missed out on a chance to do that during this past offseason, as he was fired midway through the 2022 season
ABOVE: St. Michael’s goalkeeper Marisa Dominguez juggles the ball on a shot attempt under pressure by Sandia Prep forward Audrey Brandt Barboa, No. 14, and Kayla Calkins during Tuesday’s semifinal in Albuquerque. amid an ineligibility scandal that robbed the program of two wins.
Camarena returned in July, but it was too late to scour the halls for players. Lujan said she won’t hesitate to help in that effort, although she said most prospective players prefer basketball and volleyball. She hopes she can change some minds, if not their hearts.
“I always tell them the beginning of the season is the worst,” Lujan said. “We always do all of our running then. I tell them it is really fun once you get into it. You just got to get in shape, but it’s such a fun sport. It’s a great sport.”