Soccer Preview: La Cueva vs. Manzano
La Cueva is 8-0 against Manzano since September of 2015, and they'll have a chance to extend that success on Saturday. The La Cueva Bears will venture away from home to square off against the Manzano Monarchs at 12:00 p.m. La Cueva is strutting in with some offensive muscle as they've averaged 5.1 goals per game this season.
La Cueva is coming in fresh off a high-stakes matchup with another one of New Mexico's top teams: Santa Fe, who was ranked 23rd in their home state at the time (La Cueva was ranked second). La Cueva's defense stepped up to hand Santa Fe a 10-0 shutout on Wednesday. Considering the Bears have won nine games by more than two goals this season, Wednesday's blowout was nothing new.
Their offense was hitting Santa Fe from everywhere, as eight different players booted in a goal.
Leah Barone led that balanced group of strikers and accounted for three goals all by herself.
Meanwhile, Manzano was not able to break out of their rough patch on Saturday as the team picked up their fourth straight loss. They came up short against Sandia, falling 10-0. Both teams had to tread carefully at times as the refs weren't afraid to hand out yellow cards: Faith Morrow was handed one for the Monarchs, while the Matadors got theirs courtesy of Maribel Jaramillo.
La Cueva's victory was their 11th straight at home, which pushed their record up to 15-3-1. As for Manzano, their defeat dropped their record down to 7-11.
Everything went La Cueva's way against Manzano in their previous meeting two weeks ago, as La Cueva made off with an 11-0 win. The rematch might be a little tougher for La Cueva since the team won't have the home-pitch advantage this time around. We'll see if the change in venue makes a difference.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
