8-18-2024 1:31am

Soccer Season Began for the Alamogordo Tigers at Silver Invitational

Chris Edwards Editor

The Alamogordo Tigers Boys and Girls Soccer Teams traveled to Silver to compete in the Silver Invitational. The brackets were...

The tournament results for Alamogordo Girls Soccer showed Alamogordo defeating Silver 4 to 3 at the Silver Invitational.
Olivia Morris scored 4 goals, Mila Stevens with 2 assists and Zoey Spataro also had an assist. The Lady Tigers next played Artesia.

Artesia Girls then defeated the Alamogordo Girls 4-1 at the Silver Invitational. Olivia Morris scored, Mila Steven’s with the assist. The Lady Tigers left the tournament 1-1 and next host Deming on Tuesday

The Alamogordo Tiger Boys Varsity matches at Silver Invitational were cancelled due to lightning. The Tigers next host Los Lunas on Thursday.

The JV opened the 2024 season with a 3-0 win vs Silver City. #2 Ray Gutierrez with a Brace. #8 Nicholas Spataro also scores.
#13 Levi Ramirez with a clean sheet.

Second match was cancelled vs. Hot Springs due to lightning.

In other news related to Soccer the NMAA reports that NMII has the most diverse team of international athletes within its soccer team for 2024 of any time in its history.

The New Mexico Military Institute boys soccer team has students from all over the world. This year’s roster includes players from Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam. “It’s a tough challenge, for about the next two weeks we’re still learning each other’s names,” NMMI head coach John Barbour joked. “After a few weeks we will be firing on all cylinders, but it’s going to take some time.”

For the first time in the history of the New Mexico Military Institute boys soccer program, the Colts come into the season as the defending state champs. “There’s been a lot of people asking, ‘Are you going to repeat?’ and everything that comes with that,” said Barbour. “It’s my first time dealing with that, but I’m sure Coach (Tommy) Smith over at Sandia Prep gets that all the time,” Barbour said with a smile.

Barbour is in his 19th season with the program and has an experienced group returning. “I’ve got seven or eight returners from last season and we’re super excited,” said Barbour. Goalkeeper Rudolpho Anaya returns after his successful freshman season. They also have a pair of senior centre-backs returning in Javier Yepiz and Nicholas Barcenas. All three of them were 1st team all-state last season. Senior Octavian Chavez and junior Santiago Sanchez will also suit up for NMMI once again.

“I think we’re going to surprise people,” said Barbour. The head coach says winning that first one gives the returners confidence. “Once you’ve done it, you know we have a chance to get back there and maybe try to do it again, that’s what we’re hoping for, but everybody else in the field is trying to do that as well.”

“You want to get back to the big game and we’re hoping to do that, but it’s not going to be easy,” said Barbour. “There’s a lot of people that want to do the same thing. We are just going to take it game by game and hopefully we will win a few.”