{"id":16255,"date":"2025-10-07T22:13:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T04:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wolverines-boys-soccer-remains-in-title-hunt\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:56:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:56:01","slug":"wolverines-boys-soccer-remains-in-title-hunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wolverines-boys-soccer-remains-in-title-hunt\/","title":{"rendered":"Wolverines boys soccer remains in title hunt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Bayfield's
Bayfield's Tauer Crotty (14) considers how to shake free from the Montezuma-Cortez pursuit during the Wolverines' 2-1 home win Monday night. (Joel Priest\/Special to the Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Sophomore goalkeeper Chase York\u2019s incredible diving catch of Bayfield senior Ayden Casillas\u2019 70th-minute rocket to his right was an indicator that visiting Montezuma-Cortez, trailing 2-1, still had fuel to burn during Monday night\u2019s match.<\/p>\n

Fortunately for the home side, Wolverine goalie Orion Botsford correctly interpreted such a signal. Bayfield held on for a 2-1 victory.<\/p>\n

After Casillas went down in the 77th with, much to BHS backers\u2019 horror, an apparent knee injury, the opposing Panthers were able to play one last ball into Bayfield\u2019s 18-yard box. But Botsford, playing his final home match along with fellow seniors Casillas, Zach Hufnagel, Brayden Hoffman, Wyatt Larson, Tauer and Cade Crotty, Lane Hunter and Riley Hanson, took no chances clearing the intrusion out with his foot; instead, he slid toward and smothered the problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was last-minute and we can\u2019t afford to get scored on like that like that first-half goal,\u201d Botsford said. \u201cSo we held strong in that second half and kept them to one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite going scoreless for the last 36 minutes of regulation, the Wolverines kept their 3A Intermountain title hopes alive by outlasting M-CHS inside Wolverine Country Stadium by the aforementioned one-goal margin.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be sore tomorrow but I\u2019ll be good,\u201d said Casillas. \u201cThought I tore my ACL for a second; knee went a little limp. But that\u2019s crazy \u2026 it\u2019s over; this was the last game we\u2019re all going to ever play on this field again. It\u2019s going to be sad in a few minutes when I\u2019m in my car alone and it hits me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hitting the ball fiercely from 30 yards out just nine minutes into the contest, Casillas nearly put Bayfield (6-7 overall, 3-1 IML) up early but York, already into his work, yanked the shot down and secured it tightly. Moving forward into BHS\u2019 attack, Hunter then tried for the icebreaker, but clanged his 13th-minute shot off York\u2019s crossbar.<\/p>\n

Not long after entering the fray as a substitute, sophomore Reid Hoffman finally got the Wolverines on the scoreboard in the 28th minute. Casillas lifted what was about a 25-yard free kick from the elbow of the Panthers\u2019 18 to York\u2019s right, and found freshman Diego Cuddie, who\u2019d also initially checked in from off head coach Cody Kiss\u2019 bench, who rolled a low shot back toward York\u2019s right. The attempt went wide, but Tauer Crotty managed to keep the ball in play.<\/p>\n

Nearly able to put a shot underneath M-CHS senior Nicholas Abate, Crotty then pursued the deflection as it went across York\u2019s field of vision toward his left. Crotty\u2019s follow-up chance never made it to York, but was blocked backward to Hoffman. Capitalizing upon the chaos, Hoffman then shot the ball into the net.<\/p>\n

Montezuma-Cortez (2-6-3 overall, 0-3-1 IML), however, equalized in the 38th when freshman Landon Yarbrough was able to gain control of sophomore Degan Lake\u2019s free kick taken from some 30 yards out and angled toward Botsford\u2019s right. Charging toward the back post, Yarbrough then not only beat nearby teammate Donald Marshall to the ball but also Botsford, and the score would remain 1-1 entering halftime after 40 completed minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were disturbed because we all thought it was offsides,\u201d recalled Botsford. \u201cAfter that, we just had to keep our heads up and play to our potential like we were right before it. Something came out of it; the second half we were able to reset, got back into our mindset and started playing passes how we wanted to.\u201d<\/p>\n

A perfect Casillas right-to-left cross paralleling M-CHS\u2019 18 yielded junior Julian Polanco\u2019s 44th-minute strike, which ultimately held up as the match-winner.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked about it at halftime, talked about just driving down the side and pulling it right back to the 18 and banging it in,\u201d Casillas explained. \u201cAnd we did exactly that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Larson nearly added an insurance goal in the 64th, or two minutes after Polanco left the pitch after being shaken up, but hit York\u2019s crossbar, adding to the drama.<\/p>\n

M-CHS will next see action on Oct. 16, at home against Alamosa. Bayfield, meanwhile, will resume work on the 14th at Pagosa Springs with the league title likely at stake. Should PSHS (9-1-0, 4-0-0 IML as of 10\/7) win on Friday against AHS, the Wolverines would then need to defeat the Pirates \u2013 and by more than a goal, to gain the head-to-head scoring differential advantage \u2013 and also win their Oct. 24 regular-season finale at M-CHS to clinch the crown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bayfield hangs on, edge M-CHS 2-1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[731,1871,1976,642,36,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-bayfield","tag-bayfield-high-school","tag-high-school-soccer","tag-high-school-sports","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16255"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20100,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16255\/revisions\/20100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16255"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}