<\/p>\n
Montezuma-Cortez starting goalkeeper Elena Cosner needed to make just one nonshot save during the first half of Thursday\u2019s 3A\/2A Intermountain (aka Southwestern) League match. And when head coach Sam Edgerton elected to insert Ayanna Silas after intermission, there was little to indicate she\u2019d need to do even that much work.<\/p>\n
Visiting Ignacio had already appeared to have exhausted their afterburners during an opening 13 minutes, amid Edgerton\u2019s reminders, \u201cPlay your game! Not their game!\u201d But after Lady Panther sophomore Aaliya Rendon netted the icebreaking goal in the 14th minute, and fellow soph McKenzy Howerton followed with emphatic goals in the 19th, 21st and 28th minutes, it was evident that M-CHS would rule the day.<\/p>\n
And up 6-nil on Senior Day after Rendon scored breakaway goals past helpless Lady Bobcat keeper Rylee Pearson in the 30th and 38th minutes, Edgerton decided it was time to experiment a little with his roster.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really just wanted to change it up and give different players different positions in the second half, since it was the last game,\u201d he said. \u201cWe wanted Elena to get some time in the field, see her foot skills. She showed us what she had, and it was pretty amazing!\u201d<\/p>\n
So was Silas\u2019 play in net. And in particular, when it absolutely had to be.<\/p>\n
Able to slide and smother an Abbi Barthel breakaway chance in the 55th minute, before Ignacio freshman could fully put boot to ball, Silas then leaped to snare Caitlyn Chapman\u2019s 56th-minute shot \u2013 the reinvigorated visitors\u2019 best opportunity until Lauren Gram forced her way around junior Lyndi Belt to snap the shutout in the 76th minute.<\/p>\n
\u201cAyanna \u2026 works hard for everything she has out there. She\u2019s a natural athlete, and she knows the instincts in basketball and soccer are very much alike,\u201d said Edgerton. \u201cShe just has those instincts to \u2026 go get the ball!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe very first time we had her in goal, she was a little scared,\u201d he recalled. \u201cBut after she got used to it \u2026 she\u2019s not even worried about it. Not scared at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Junior Johanna Ruiz, in the 44th minute, and senior Hailey White, via a 47th-minute cleanup of a Pearson-denied Kacie Featherman attempt, accounted for Montezuma-Cortez\u2019s seventh and eighth goals as M-CHS finished a hard-hit 2018 campaign standing 3-13 overall \u2013 3-13 against the circuit and 0-6 versus its 3A members.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey knew they needed to end the season off with a \u2018W,\u2019 so they worked hard for it. They deserved it. \u2026 Worked hard all season and never gave up. No matter how beat-down we were, they just kept battling and kept battling,\u201d Edgerton said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a whole \u2026 it was definitely a learning experience, but it was fun!\u201d he added, reflecting on his first season as M-CHS skipper. \u201cWe had lots of major injuries to major girls, which really affected our season, but like I said, the girls have lots of fight and never gave up. Which made me keep battling on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ignacio finished Alisha Gullion\u2019s maiden spring at the helm 0-15 overall, 0-15 in league and 0-10 versus its 2A side. After losing to M-CHS, the Lady Bobcats lost 8-3 the next morning at emerging power Del Norte (11-4 overall in only its second varsity season).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Howerton, Rendon register hat tricks at home<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":99918,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5770],"tags":[36,346,594],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-99917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-sports","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-sports","tag-track-and-field"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99917","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=99917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99917"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=99917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}