No. 5 Badgers top rival Mingus 1-nil

Prep Girls Soccer

COTTONWOOD — The No. 5-ranked Prescott girls soccer team held on to win a rain-soaked top 10 battle at Mingus on Tuesday night, 1-0.

“There were good moments, some tricky moments at the end where we almost let them back in the game, a letdown in the back, but we’re trying new players at different spots, we’re really trying to prepare for postseason if we can make it to state,” Prescott head coach Paul Campuzano said. “But overall coming to Mingus and playing is never easy.”

The Badgers (11-2, 2-0 Grand Canyon) scored in the ninth minute on a Marauder own goal off of a cross from junior forward Lily Jensen.

Mingus head coach Calvin Behlow said he’s proud of the Marauders.

“That’s a great team, they possess the ball well, they know their positions, they never really lose their shape,” Behlow said. “We didn’t do much offensively, we did a great job defensively. It’s a heart breaker to lose, to lose to a better team but to lose on an own goal kind of just stinks.”

The Marauders (5-2-0, 0-2 Grand Canyon) went 4-0-0 during the fall semester, doubling their regular season win total of a year ago but so far have gone 1-2-0 in 2019.

The victory was Prescott’s second straight after losing 5-1 at No. 1 Thunderbird.

Although it rained or at least sprinkled the whole game, it was on the Marauders’ artificial turf pitch.

“Oh that was horrible (laughs),” Campuzano said. “I preach firm passes, passes to feet, hard passes and then today when you saw them doing that the ball was flying 20 yards past people. So it got a little tricky, a little hard I was happy to play on turf though, we love turf because our home field is a swamp right now. For the most part it’s good, we were just over hitting passes because it was wet but other than that we were fine.”

After a few awkward passes early on the players adjusted.

“It changed the speed, the ball skipped so much that nothing was really comfortable,” Behlow said about the rain. “So that changed the game a lot.”

Campuzano said Mingus junior goalkeeper Zoey Arwine came up big on two or three saves.

“So if that doesn’t happen then the score looks a little more lopsided but all we have to keep doing is seeing these games out and winning,” Campuzano said. “We were under control most of the time, they had a couple opportunities break downs in our defense, but for the most part I think we played well, controlled the game and got a lot of new players some time.

UP NEXT

Prescott hosts No. 8 Flagstaff on Thursday at 5 p.m. Mingus travels to No. 10 Seton Catholic Prep on Friday. Their next home game is Jan. 24 against No. 37 Coconino at 5 p.m.

James Kelley is a reporter for The Verde Independent. Follow him on Twitter at @jameskelley520. Email him at jkelley@verdenews.com or call 928-634-2241, ext. 6035.