Lady Bulldog kickers fourth at tourney

TUCSON – The Douglas Lady Bulldog soccer team finished fourth out of eight teams at the Palo Verde Invitational which was held at Palo Verde High School Dec. 19-22.

Douglas opened up the tournament falling to Marana 5-0. The Lady Bulldogs played this match with just one sub and finished the week with 11 playing often times with 10 just to have a sub to give players a break.

Kianna Ross went down with an ankle injury against Marana.

“We battled with a young Marana team that used its speed to take us down,” Douglas’ coach Mario Romero said. Anytime you play in a tournament you hope no one gets hurts and the other girls step up.”

Marana out shot Douglas 17-13. Amanda Teran had eight saves at goalie for Douglas.

The Lady Bulldogs then had a rematch with Nogales, a team they had beaten in Douglas several weeks ago.

The Lady Apaches gained a bit of revenge beating Douglas 3-0.

“We were down 1-0 at half,” Coach Romero said. “We made too many mental mistakes defensively, that's all it takes in soccer to score. Once again Nogales capitalized off of breakdowns and they put two more in the second half to beat us 3-0. We out shot them 18 to 11. We just couldn't put the ball in back of the net. We had several scoring opportunities, but just couldn't capitalize.”

Teran had two saves at goalie.

On Friday Douglas finally got into the win column at the tournament beating Amphi 9-0.

The Lady Bulldogs dominated this match out shooting their opponents 34-4.

“We jumped on Amphi quickly scoring in the 8th minute of the game,” Coach Romero said.

Elyzabeth Duarte scored in the 8th, 15th and 30th minute. Erika Romero scored in the 18th and 20th minute and also had two assists. Aileen Larez scored in the 38th minute assisted by Karla Loreto. Loreto then scored in the 53rd minute, Ana Francia Morales scored in the 63rd minute assisted by Jenessa Salazar and Yadira Cuevas scored in the 66th minute assisted by Morales.

“I had girls playing different positions this game and most of the game playing with only 10 players,” the coach said. “We knew we could control the tempo of the game against Amphi, then we just cruised to victory. All the girls played well offensively and defensively.

Saturday's game was a rematch against Nogales for third place.

“Once again we got burnt on a break away and Nogales was on the board at the 14 minute of the game,” Coach Romero said. “No one really had control of the game we just missed out on some scoring opportunities and beat ourselves.”

Salazar scored a header off a a corner kick by Erika Romero and made the match interesting.

“Unfortunately, the girls let down defensively and Nogales took the lead for good winning 2-1,” the coach said. “The girls played with heart, and played much better this game than they did Thursday night. I only had one senior on the field this match. This was a good experience for the girls to play their first PV tournament. We hope to bounce back the second part of the season.”

Palo Verde went on to win the tournament beating Marana 2-0.

The Lady Bulldogs return to the field Jan. 10 to host Palo Verde. That will be followed by another home game Jan. 15 against Safford.