COLORADO SPRINGS – The shots near the Riverdale Ridge net just weren’t going in. And Cheyenne Mountain had chance after chance to break the scoreless tie, but every shot just seemed to be high or get turned away in spectacular fashion.
So Jonathan Diaz Mendoza figured it was worth trying from further out. And it turned out to do the trick.
Mendoza’s goal slipped into the top-right corner, and he added another one in the closing minutes to give the No. 7 Red-Tailed Hawks a 2-0 win over No. 26 Riverdale Ridge in the first round of the Class 4A boys soccer state tournament.
“I just had to hit it from there,” Diaz Mendoza said. “I had the confidence to shoot it from there and score. I shot it and just had to wait and see what happened.”
The goal lifted a heavy weight off the shoulders of the Hawks (10-5-1 overall) who had found more than their share of chances to score early only to come up empty-handed.
“You have to give their goalkeeper credit, he played very well,” Cheyenne Mountain coach Brian Jewell said. “We told our guys halftime that if we keep creating opportunities and keep getting down the side and getting balls in the middle that something is going to go. JDM just had a couple of special moments for us.”
They got some of their best chances fairly early in the first half. Luke Depeppe had a great look at the net before his shot sailed high of the crossbar. Carter Johnson later shook his defender to get a firm shot off, but Sebastian Delgadillo corralled the save.
Five minutes later, Depeppe put a great ball through the box, and it once again found Johnson’s foot and once again Delgadillo made the save.
“It was frustrating,” Johnson said. “I really wanted to get a goal.”
A scoreless halftime left players and coaches uncertain if they were simply due to convert on their chances, or if failing to do so was going to be costly in the end.
Perhaps the only thing that made them feel better about a 0-0 game at that point was that they had successfully marked Larsen Pocs and Orlando Munoz well enough that neither had a shot on goal in the first half. In fact, it was tough for the Ravens (10-5-1) to put any pressure on the Cheyenne Mountain net all game.
Both trends continued into the second half as Cheyenne Mountain maintained the bulk of the offensive pressure but had very little to show for it. John Arguello pressed the attack and got behind the entire Ravens back line before firing a shot toward the net. And again, Delgadillo knocked the ball away.
A sense of frustration building, the Hawks had to be careful to tread the line between urgency and panic.
“I don’t think we were panicked at all,” Jewell said. “We’ve been a second-half team all season. If you look at our nine wins, I don’t have the exact count, but at least half of them we’ve come back from a goal deficit, and it’s been in the second half.”
They continued to find their spots and attack the net when necessary. It was in the 73rd minute, however, when Diaz Mendoza had a touch in open space about 40 yards out from the net.
He launched the ball toward the top-right corner and it slipped right by Delgadillo’s outstretched fingers.
“I was shocked it went in,” Diaz Mendoza said. “I had to hit from there and be confident.”
This is the first boys soccer playoff win for Cheyenne Mountain in five years and the team is looking forward to getting another one.
The Hawks host No. 10 Grand Junction in Colorado Springs on Wednesday.