Girls soccer: Gilbert blanks Mtn. View at Coyote Classic

December 8, 2014 by Les Willsey, AZPreps365


Gilbert High's girls soccer team is off to a fast start and faced little resistance in fashioning a 3-0 record a bit more than a week into the season.

The latets victory took place Monday afternoon as the Lady Tigers took care of Mesa Mountain View, 3-0, in their first pool play game at the 2nd annual Coyote Classic at Campo Verde High School.

Senior foward Melinda Gutierrez scored twice and assisted on the other goal. Gilbert  tallied all of its goals in the first 22 minutes of the first half. Gutierrez received nice passes for easy chances she converted in the 10th minute and 22nd minute. Gutierrez followed her first goal with an assist on a pretty corner kick a foot or two in front of the goal at the near post that was knocked in by sophomore defender Audrey Balafas in the 13th minute.

Gilbert substituted freely and played most of its 20-plus player roster. The Lady Tigers play never seemed to diminish no matter the lineup on the field. Mountain View dropped to 0-2-1 for the season with an 0-1-1 record in power-rankling matches. The Lady Toros tie was forged against Basha, who Mountain View faces in the tournament on Wednesday afternoon in its second pool-play match.

"I thought we started a little rough, Gilbert coach Ben Holzer said. "We got a couple of quick goals and maintained a good level of play. I felt our back line played very well. It's a young line (three juniors and a sophomore) and only one of them a returning starter. To maintain the shutout ffor 80 minutes was the best part of the what we did today."

Gilbert opened its season last week with two power-point victories over Central (5-0) and Dobson (8-1), respectively. The Lady Tigers haven't faced top-shelf opponents yet, but have handled them with ease. Gilbert has two more pool play games this week (Thursday and Friday) with its matchup Friday vs. Basha the biggest challenge.

In other girls matches played on Monday, Mountain Pointe evened its pool-play record at 1-1 with a 3-0 victory over Seton Catholic.The final girls match on Monday pitted Campo Verde against Red Mountain and resulted in a 1-1 tie. Three late afternoon and evening boys matches completed Monday's schedule. Basha began the trio with a 3-1 victory over Gilbert. Campo Verde and Chandler played to a 0-0 tie. Dobson and Desert Vista played to a 2-2 tie.