GHS soccer teams and volleyball squad off to rough start
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Senior running back Terrell Hocker,1, blasts a hole through the St. Pius defense at a recent away game this past Friday. The Pirates defeated the St. Pius Sartans 13-2 and are currently 1-0. They will play the Gallup Bengals this upcoming Friday,19th in Gallup (0-2). Franklin Romero. - CC
BERNALILLO N.M. - With everyone masked up, reminiscent of old Pirate movie, this past Friday the GHS Pirate football team battled it out with district rival, the St. Pius Sartans, for four quarters. When the last whistle blew at the end of the game the Pirates loaded up the bus and brought back home a 13-2 victory and advanced to 1-0.
The first quarter was uneventful as the two rivals jousted back and forth without any significant plays. St. Pius worked on trying to find the right combination of quarterbacks as they alternated a trio of quarterbacks throughout the night and the Pirates alternated between the running game and short passes testing the defenses weak spots.
It wasn’t until late in second quarter when senior punt returner Bryan Hernandez returned a 76 yard run to put the Pirates up 6-0.
“I just saw the lanes open up on the left, I made them go left, I ran up our sideline and had some good blocks along the way,” said Hernandez of his punt return.
Senior Pirates kicker, Michael Trujillo, kicked the extra point which just grazed the lower up uprights to make the score 7- 0.
Halftime came and went un eventfully and it wasn’t until the middle of the third quarter when a bad snap on a punt attempt had the Sartans and Pirates scrambling for the pigskin in the end zone. Luckily for the Pirates Trujillo, the kicker, was able to grab the ball thus denying the Sartans a six point score and having to settle for a 2 point safety making the score 7-2.
Late in the fourth quarter after a Sartan turnover senior Terrell Hocker,1, was able to punch a hole through the Sartan defense for his first TD of the season. The follow up 2 point conversion was no good making the score 13-2 in the waning moments of the fourth quarter.
“Pius is used to us running the ball, our game plan was to soften up the middle of their very physical defense by throwing the ball.” said GHS head football coach Rio Thompson.
“We are excited the boys have the opportunity to compete this year - we are excited to play our longtime rivals, the Gallup Bengals, this coming week, “said Thompson of his upcoming game this Friday at Gallup High School.
In other GHS sports news
The lady Pirates soccer team is 0-2 after their first two games of the season. The lady Pirates played away on March 16 against the Hope Huskies and lost 8-0 and then two days later they hosted the Academy Chargers and lost 8-2. Scoring the goals for the lady Pirates were Kylette Garcia and Colette Tena with a goal apiece.
“We have never scored against Academy and last year had a pretty big loss to them - I couldn’t be more proud of Kylette and Colette,” said Tammy Bruce the lady Pirate soccer team head coach. “We have a very split team - a group of young and inexperienced players learning from some great players,” added Bruce.
GHS boys’ soccer (0-2) had a rough start to their season dropping their first two games 12-1 to Academy on March 13 and 8-0 to Hope Christian on March 11. Both Soccer programs will play St. Pius on Tuesday, March 16, the boys will host while he girls will travel.
Lady Pirates volleyball are currently 0-4 after losses to Rehoboth Christian on March 9, 3- 2, March 10 Hope Christian 3-0, March 12 Albuquerque Academy 3-0 and St. Pius on March 13, 3- 0. The lady Pirates will host Bernalillo High School on March 16.