When the Sedona Red Rock High School boys soccer team looked at its schedule at the beginning of the season, the Scorpions expected that the match against Chino Valley would be among the toughest of the season. Those expectations were met when they played the Cougars on their home turf on Wednesday, Oct. 14.
The Chino Valley boys announced their presence early with a goal in the opening minutes. The Cougars added two goals late in the first half to open up a 3-0 halftime lead. They then added two more goals in the second half, and while the Scorpions scored the game’s final goal, they still found themselves on the wrong side of a 5-1 final.
“We knew it was going to be the toughest game, but I guess we didn’t know it was going to be that hard until we kind of came in,” SRRHS freshman Carlos Gonzalez said. “I feel like we could have done better.”
Chino Valley had been confident coming into the game. Though they were short handed in a season opening loss to Snowflake, they won their next seven games, boasting a 25-1 goal count going into their match against the Scorpions. The Cougars were also the state runner-ups a season ago and returned most of its team.
Scorpions coach Sam Blom felt that his team was maybe a little in awe of the Cougars to start the game. But he also was encouraged by the fight that Sedona showed in the second half when the outcome was seemingly no longer in doubt.
“We were just watching them a little bit and then bingo, No. 14 scored,” Blom said, referencing Chino Valley senior Angel Sanchez’ first goal of the game. “And they got a couple goals at the end of the first half. We were a little bit careless with our passes and would panic at times. We were a little bit thinking, ‘Wow, these guys are good.’ But we never really gave up. That’s what I liked.”
That was an opinion shared by Sedona sophomore Max Metzger.
“We could have been better in the first half,” he said. “We were a little intimidated but in the second half we fought and got a goal in the second half. Overall we probably did pretty good but there’s room for improvement.”
The Scorpions did have some positives to take away from the game. One is that they scored the game’s final goal, which came courtesy of senior Jaiah Grondin. Sedona also had two other quality chances in the second half, ringing a pair of shots off of the crossbar.
Another positive for the Scorpions is that the loss to Chino Valley gave them a better sense of what to expect for the remainder of the regular season and possibly beyond.
“We learned what the competition is going to be like for the playoffs,” Metzger said. “We know what we’re going to have to do when we get there. We get to play them again and we get to play Payson again. So one game at a time we’re going to work on trying to beat them. When we play Chino again, we kind of know their players — their skills and weaknesses. We’re going to work to get better to counter them.”
With the loss, Sedona’s record dropped to 5-2-1. The Scorpions have four games remaining on the schedule. They’ll be on the road their next two games. The first will be on Monday, Oct. 19 against North Valley Christian at 4 p.m. On Wednesday, Oct. 21, the Scorpions will travel to Payson for a 6 p.m. start against the Longhorns, which handed SRRHS its other loss on the season.
Sedona will be at home against Rancho Solano Prep on Friday, Oct. 23 at 6 p.m., and will finish the regular season on the road again against Chino Valley on Tuesday, Oct. 27, starting at 4 p.m.
