Sometimes in real life, things turn out like they did on Saturday the Class 4A state boys soccer playoffs at Robert Chase Field. The Artesia Bulldogs were on fumes- cramping, exhausted, and short a player on the field- and still managed to upset the No.5 -seeded Los Alamos Hilltoppers 2-1 in the state quarterfinals.
“Their goalkeeper Kenny Linn is top-notch and phenomenal,” Bulldogs coach Phillip Jowers said. “He is going to play at Colorado Mesa, but the whole Los Alamos team is good. They are a good group of boys whom I always enjoy playing with. I felt really confident in this game, knowing Los Alamos had to come here. It has been eight-to-10 years since Los Alamos has played here. The fans that showed up for us were phenomenal, and that gave our boys an extra bit.”
Red card leads to victory
The victory is the first time in school history that the Bulldogs soccer program has played in the state soccer semifinal game in its 28-year history. The best player on the field for either teams was German foreign-exchange student Anton Wodarz for Artesia, but the most valuable player on the team was sophomore Couper Foster. He had the presence of mind to tackle a Los Alamos player, who, if he had made it past him, would have been one-on-one with the goalie Ryker Hays.
The Los Alamos player could have made the shot to end the Bulldogs’ season with less than two minutes to play in the game. With the tackle, Foster sacrificed his season with a red card to extend the match a little further, including to overtimes.
With the red card, Foster was ejected from the match and must miss the semifinal match against St. Pius X at 2 p.m. Wednesday. Without Foster’s sacrifice, the Bulldogs might not be going anywhere but class on that day.
“I knew the second after he (Foster) made that foul it was going to be a red card,” Jowers said. “Nobody wants to get a red (card); they call that denial of a goal-scoring opportunity. It was the right call, and the referee had it right. I don’t want to condone red cards because I don’t think anybody wants your team to get one, but if he (Foster) hadn’t fouled him, we would have gone down 2-0. He (Foster) decided to roll the dice, it happened, and we responded well and came back and got that equalizing goal with 20 minutes in.”
Another key factor in the Bulldogs’ victory was the entire coaching staff of Zane Brooks, Billie Delgado, and John Baca. All of them could be seen encouraging the players through their physical fatigue, with the coaches picking players up off the field and talking to them. Encouraging them not to give up and to keep fighting, while remaining positive, especially when the game was tight.
As Artesia was short a man after Foster’s red card, Jowers said to his team, “We don’t lose at home; they (Los Alamos) are spent. Continue to press and pressure them, they (Hilltoppers) are not used to heat.”
As a result, the longer the game went, the stronger and more aggressive the Bulldogs became.
“I don’t know that I talked to a lot of people when we were a man down,” Jowers said. “My mind was trying to figure out how to make it work with the personnel because a lot of the boys were cramping. I have a great coaching staff, and I could not do it without them. I think that is why we have so much success, because we have a great staff.
The game was hard-fought and scoreless in the first half, but with 6:29 in the second half, Los Alamos scored the game’s first goal. For the next 13 minutes, the Hilltoppers were playing aggressively on the Bulldogs’ side of the field. With Wodarz out, the team looked to Moises Corza, who at the 20:15 mark in the second half scored a cross-goal to tie the game. After the goal, Artesia’s momentum changed, and they started playing with the belief that they could win.
“Once we scored the goal, it gave us extra energy,” Jowers said. “It was a hard-fought game. This is one of those games where you blow a team out and win- kind of crush them. Those are great, but these are the wins. I feel like this game will be remembered forever, mainly because the boys got stuck in with a man down.”
Win in overtime
With 2:28 left in the second overtime, Wodarz was able to beat a Los Alamos defender and went to the right side of the goal, where he faced Los Alamos Kenny Linn. Before Linn could move, Wodarz got the shot off that went just past Linn’s outstretched arms to give the Bulldogs a 2-1 victory.
“I received a great assist from (Jayden) Soto,” Wodarz said. “I said, ‘I shoot now or I shoot never.’ The game was physical. It is part of a good game when it gets physical. It is better to get a red card than to give up a goal. I think when you really want something, you can get it, and you never give up. Our team never gives up. I am happy to play again, and we are so successful. I am really happy for the seniors, especially. I am happy to make the (Artesia) dream come true. When I shot the ball, I was thinking of my little brother, whose name I have written on my shoe, Johann Wodarz.”
Rematch
The Bulldogs now must travel to Albuquerque for a 2 p.m. start against St. Pius X on Nov.5. It is a rematch of the teams that met 17 days ago, when the Sartans defeated the Bulldogs 5-0.
