There is always next year, vowed Sedona Red Rock High School freshman Braeden Feldtkeller, sophomores Alicia Pallares, Marissa Pedroza and Collier Trcic and juniors Sierra Fraley and Malia Sonn on Saturday, Feb. 6.
“Next year, we start all over again,” head girls coach Juan Carlos Aguilar said. “All our defense is gone besides Collier.
“With the school [enrollment] numbers we have right now, it’s going to be tough. We just need these kids coming back ready to go.”
But the soccer careers of as many as six other Scorpions still standing at the end of a physical 1-0 home loss to Pusch Ridge Christian Academy ended with a sudden whisper in the Division IV state quarterfinals.
“It hurts when you have this outcome, when you work your heart [out] to get this,” Aguilar said. “We had a great season. No one’s going to take that away from you.”
That is life, however, in the sudden-death state playoffs, a lesson learned even more cruelly by the No. 12 seed boys Feb. 2 in a 19-0 first-round elimination by fifth seed Buckeye Union High School.
“I think it was the best season,” Pedroza said. “We became better as a team.”
The lack of numbers this winter to sustain a junior varsity boys or girls team — or, in the playoffs, a bench with more than two players — dealt the knockout blow to both Scorpions soccer seasons.
“With four games every week for the past month, I cannot ask for more,” said Aguilar, who finished the season
11-4-2 overall. “They are winners in my eyes.”
A rebound goal kneed in by Pusch Ridge Christian Academy’s Emma Rash within the game’s first two minutes held up against Aguilar’s gassed girls, who, at times, played with no bench in the second half.
“They gave us the best season ever for me,” Aguilar said. “It would be a great dream to have us in the finals, but it would not be a fair final for the other team, just having a team that’s tired and beat-up.
”They gave it all. So they should be proud of themselves.”
Striker Mason Feldtkeller had double-digit shots on goal but could not find the net. She finished her senior year tied for sixth in Arizona for most goals scored for the season.
“She’s a great player,” Aguilar said. “I’m sure she’s going to do fine in the next chapter of her life.”
Feldtkeller, Pedroza and other Scorpions constantly threatened to score but never did.
A Pallares kick into the left side of the net with 22½ minutes gone in the first half did not count, as the ball was ruled to have gone out of bounds before it rebounded to Pallares.
The Scorpions couldn’t get any closer than that, as Sonn slipped and hooked a clear, straight shot on goal with 10 minutes remaining.
By his own count, at least, senior Francisco Hernandez tied the SRRHS single-season record for boys goals scored with 46. But just prior to the playoffs, he suddenly quit the team, leaving a gaping hole in the Scorpions’ offense — and on their already-depleted bench.
“Amazing individual talent and skill. Big. Fast. Strong,” was all head coach Cindy Hauserman would say about Hernandez’s departure.
“Lots of credit to Buckeye,” she added after the loss. “We were so thin on numbers, and they had power players and power reserves … with lots of skill and speed.”
What is left for SRRHS, the top-ranked boys soccer team in Division IV three weeks ago, depends on how the Scorpions deal with the loss of Hernandez and seven other seniors off “an already slim roster,” Hauserman said.
Off-season preparation by underclassmen like freshmen Clark Borjon and Elias Turnbull and sophomores Brian Burke, Julian Travaglia and Justin Wassell, will be key.
“With the next batch of incoming freshmen, our team would be young,” Hauserman said. “But we’d have some kids with soccer experience, which is helpful.”
