Hundred-minute draw
After 100 minutes of back-andforth, evenly-matched soccer, the game between the Taos Lady Tigers and the Moriarty Lady Pintos on
Thursday (Oct. 20) ended in a scoreless draw. The tie gave the Lady Pintos the triply symmetrical district record of 2-2-2. For Taos, the tie leaves them in third place of the district standings to end their season.
The word of the day for the Lady
Tigers that could be heard on the pitch throughout the whole game was “width.” The Taos coaches kept instructing the players to get out wider for potential through-balls. If the player making the run wasn’t wide enough, they were sure to hear about it on the sidelines. And the constant harping over width paid dividends for Taos as they kept attacking along the flanks and getting the ball into dangerous positions often enough to warrant a score.
Senior goalkeeper Alaralynn Gunderson, who has 153 saves this season for Moriarty, kept cool under pressure and always found a way to pounce on the ball when Taos got near the 6-yard box.
Another contributing factor on the lack of goals was the Lady Pintos penchant for swarming on Rose-Maria Van Willigen whenever she got near the penalty box.
Van Willigen had a strong outing in midfield against Moriarty. More often than not, she would make the right read and release her teammates at the right moment with a
perfectly-timed pass. She almost broke the deadlock when she dribbled through a couple of defenders, but instead of taking a shot towards goal, Van Willigen passed it to the wide-open Rowan Heflin, who mishit the ball wide to the right.
Anabelle Caldwell used her speed late in the game to break
away from the defense along the right flank, but the Lady Pintos converged inside the box quick enough to contest Caldwell for a difficult attempt on goal.
Lady Tiger Vanessa Herrera had eight saves in the game but would need the help of Corrina Harrower’s
last chance goal line clearance to secure the clean sheet. Somewhat off of her line, Herrera was unable to fully hold on to a shot that bounced off her gloves, giving Moriarty a chance to strike a ball into the empty net. Harrower kept her eye on the ball and kicked it out while it hung in the air, inches from crossing the line. The ball went straight to a Lady Pinto who sent it sailing high.
There was some real physicality on the pitch in overtime and few calls were made when players went to ground. Neither team could get a clear quality shot off, and the game ended with an anticlimactic draw.
The Lady Tigers finish the season with a record of 5-11-2 and will retain a great majority of their roster, with the exception of Harrower, for the 23-24 campaign next year.