After a hiatus from the postseason last year, the Camp Verde High School boys soccer team has a score to settle in its return to the Division V state tournament Thursday, Oct. 29.
As the final State seed, head coach Dave Miller’s Cowboys will return to fifth-seeded Phoenix Country Day School for their third game of the season with the Eagles beginning at 6 p.m.
Actually, the first-round match-up could be considered more of an extension of the two teams’ previous game Oct. 20, which ended in a 1-1 tie through two overtimes that neither team could break after sophomore outside midfielder Wesley Loveall kicked in the tying goal in regulation.
“We know them pretty well,” said Miller, whose team outshot the Eagles with 22 shots on goal to their 19 on Oct. 20. “They’re just like us: They play for opportunity and try to score from that in more of a counterattacking offense.”
CVHS struck first in the rivalry Sept. 24 for a 1-0 win at home behind sophomore striker Nate Schultz’s goal.
“The first game was an emotional situation in which we played 10 players after we lost a player to a red card,” Miller said. “We were all over the place. Even though we were a man down, we looked like we were a man up. The boys refused to lose.”
Miller plans to only have a three-man bench at most, running out sophomore Preston Maynard in goal all game and juniors Jose Guzman, Sam Maynard and sweeper David Perez to run the defense, backed up by freshman Joseph Jones.
“It’s hard to get away from him,” Miller said of Jones. “He has speed and tenacity as a stopper.
“We have a clearing-type defense: We try to keep everything in front of us from the midfield, forward. We let the midfielders do their job, either from outside or center — put the ball into space and let the strikers attack.”
He hopes that in his 20th season as head coach, the road to the fall Arizona state boys soccer championship returns its route through Camp Verde.
“We’ve only missed the playoffs twice,” he said. “It’s become a habit.
“Our goal was to make it back. Now, we’ve set a new goal: To make it out of the first round.”
The boys [4-6-1] will be joined in the tournament by the CVHS girls team, seeded seventh, which will travel to Round Valley High School for its first-round game at the same time.
For the full story, please see the Wednesday, Oct. 28, issue of the Camp Verde Journal.
