Desert Vista girls, Hamilton boys champs of Diablos Soccer

December 9, 2011 by Les Willsey, AZPreps365


Desert Vista's girls soccer team and  Hamilton's boys squad kept their perfect records intact  Friday night as the third week of the 2011-2012 soccer season came to a close.

Desert Vista overcame its first deficit of the season in remarkably quick fashion and rallied to produce a 3-1 victory over Corona del Sol to win the girls crown of the Tempe Diablos Soccer Classic at Tempe Sports Complex. Hamilton did not trail in its boys title match with Gilbert, but used two second-half goals to distance itself from the Tigers, 3-0, to win its second consecutive Diablos title.

Desert Vista (8-0) picked up a pair of goals from midfielder Kelly Watson in the first half and one in the second by Jessica Johnson. Watson's first goal was huge in the fact it came about 30 seconds after Corona (3-2-2)  had taken a 1-0 lead in the 23rd minute on Maddie Caldwell's tally from about 25 yards out that skipped through the hands of Desert Vista's keeper. Watson added the go-ahead goal in the 31st minute on a penalty kick. That came as a result of hand ball in the box against Corona.

"That first goal we gave up and then coming back with one was important," Desert Vista coach Marvin Hypolite said. "It was a counter punch and sent a message."

Johnson scored her goal for Desert Vista in the 56th minute for a 3-1 lead. The match was quite physical and a lot of yellow cards were handed out the rest of the way.

"I'm not disappointed by the goals they scored," Corona del Sol coach Matt Smith said. "We made some huge hustle plays in this tournament and helped ourselved with three balls we got to off the line this week in tight games. We had players hustling bumping into each other. Desert Vista made the most of those opportunities. The first goal they pushed forward right away, and converted."

Hamilton, which ran its record to 7-0, got a penalty-kick goal from senior Danny Arrubla in the 10th minute and rode that to a lead at intermission. Arrubla's PK goal was his 15th of the season. With Gilbert (7-1) opting to hound Arrubla, Hamilton got contributions from others that coach Nick Markette had hoped would come through. Gilbert had not allowed a goal in the tournament until Friday and only one in its first seven matches.

"Gilbert had two gorillas on Danny," Markette said. "We're going to see that. Other guys need to come through and they have the last couple games. Last nightit was Jordan Fletcher.  Tonight we had two sophomores, Tyler Patel and Connor Follett, score in the second half. When teams mark  Danny it  creates space for others."