The wait will last until Tuesday, Jan. 5, but that is when Sedona Red Rock High School will at last enter the competition for the Division IV, Section III girls soccer title.
With their road game at the Odyssey Institute for Advanced and International Studies, the Scorpions will be the last team in their section to play one of their own.
“One practice, and we go,” head girls coach Juan Carlos Aguilar said. “I have no idea what we’re going against.
“These teams are so unpredictable because I can’t tell if they’re good or not until I play them. You look at their results, and one, they’re really good, and the other, they lose by the same amount of goals. It’s like, ‘Huh?’”
It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. The Scorpions had a home section opener planned Dec. 18 with Glendale Preparatory Academy, but the new SRRHS stadium turf wasn’t ready yet.
“This is a new place for us,” Aguilar said. “The only team we play again is Paradise Honors [High School]. The rest, we’ve never played before.”
After three more games, it will be when the Scorpions return home for their next sectional matchup Wednesday, Jan. 13, against Cortez High School.
“It’s good, because we’ve had these two weeks of break,” said head girls coach Juan Carlos Aguilar. “It’s nice to play on new turf.”
In the meantime, SRRHS returns Jan. 5 to Buckeye, where it scored its first win of the season Dec. 17, 2-1, over Buckeye Union High School.
“We start fresh with pretty much three games a week,” Aguilar said. “I’m just praying for them to be healthy. If I have one injury or two injuries on a 13-player roster, I’m in trouble. I’m not going to ask nine or 10 players to do the job of 11.”
Aguilar hopes he won’t need 15 saves from freshman goalkeeper Braeden Feldtkeller against the Minotaur like he did in her three Desert Cup Classic games, where the Scorpions went up against players that were “just amazing“ and “absolutely great,” Aguilar said.
“The shots they had on goal, wow,” he added. “Not even I, sometimes, can do those shots.”
Aguilar is not worried about his defense and midfielders like seniors Alejandra Betancourt, Naomi Garcia and Makenzie Meacham, who are “outstanding” and “very strong,” he said.
“It all depends on if they are fit and mentally prepared for the games.”
Senior forwards Mason Feldtkeller and Valerie Luyckx sag from their forward positions and help them out when they need to, as does junior Malia Sonn.
“We can practice seven days a week, but if you’re not playing as a team, you’re not going to win,” he said. “You can have a team that lost all their games, like we pretty much did last year. We can come back with three good players, and we can have a winning season.”
