Maturation Enhances Tiger Boys’ Soccer Game

PRAIRIE GROVE — Berryville was expected to dominate a young Prairie Grove boys soccer team but the Bobcats couldn’t do much after taking a 2-0 lead 6:19 into the match on Tuesday, April 5.

Prairie Grove coach Kristen Walker had reason to be concerned because at the beginning of the season the Tigers got up on Decatur and Green Forest. At the half Prairie Grove led by at least two goals in both matches but fell apart in the second half.

“Then we stopped right there. In the second half we kind of crumbled and they came back and beat us by two or three goals. I feel really happy tonight because our guys really came together and figured out a lot of things on defense and offense and playing together. I think this is the best that I’ve seen them play. They’ve worked on it and they looked really good against a team like Berryville,” Walker said.

The Tigers didn’t get rattled after giving up two first half goals within a 57 second span, falling behind 2-0 less than six-and-a-half minutes into the match.

“We’ve been working on a lot of things with our team and they’ve really shown heart and not giving up till the last. They’ll get up every game,” Walker said.

Some fans predicted going into the match that Berryville might outclass the Tigers, yet this Tiger squad chooses to sport a different set of stripes than the one which blew the early leads against Decatur and Green Forest.

“We hung with them. I could not be prouder of them,” Walker said.

Walker praised the play of goalkeeper Kevin Herrera, whom she said did a great job at keeper. Walker mentioned the play of Paytin Higgs on offense with a lot of the guys saying they felt like he was MVP. Walker said there were so many fine efforts she could keep naming individuals and just go around the field.

One senior defender was out, yet Walker felt the defensive line pulled it together. Jacob Bullard demonstrated leadership as a junior and she praised Lucas Akey for doing a great job along with sophomore Marelo Maldonaldo.

“We had a young back line, two juniors, a sophomore and a freshman. Tate Cox, this is his first year to play at the high school level, he’s a ninth grader, he played our right D and they were all over him all night. He played amazing,” Walker said.

Assistant coach Mason Pinkley voted for Cox to be MVP. From Walker’s perspective she saw so many MVPs including Davis Huitink, a junior, who carried his weight during his first time to carry the middle of the field. Cole Spradley and

Trent Lovelace- Chandler played back, kind of like stoppers.

“Seriously, they all played great. Donny Dormir, who usually plays keeper came in and subbed in, and Jesus Herrera subbed in and, man, I just think everybody [contributed],” Walker said.

The team picked up on the soccer concepts Walker’s been trying to get across.

Walker told them they had to quit calling it ‘family’ for a couple of weeks until she could see that developing. Instead Walker made them use the term, ‘team first,’ and two weeks later they were ready to call it ‘family’ again.

Colin Faulk made key plays. Eric Rojas-Hernandez was dropping and playing great defense and switching it. He had some great saves according to Walker.

“Our biggest issue I felt like was just working together as a team and seeing each other working. They have matured and grown so much from just coming from all different [social cliques]. It’s not just one friend group. We have all different friend groups and this group of seniors have a lot of stuff going on from their whole lives and that’s how quickly that I’ve seen them mature, just mature a lot in the past month and pull the team together and really work as a team,” Walker said.