Page 9 - Sanger Herald 1-11-18 E-edition

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SANGER HERALD * PAGE 1B * THURSDAY, JANUARY 11, 2018
Soccer team struggles to find the flame that ignites victory
By Mike Nemeth
Sanger Herald
The first half hadn’t gone well. The Apaches found themselves down 2-0 against an aggressive Bullard High team, playing on its home soccer field.
It’s not that the Apaches didn’t execute that warm, almost balmy, night Jan. 4. Midway through the first half, junior forward Saul Sanchez lined up on the Knights’ goal on a fast- moving play that eluded every defender. He had the one chance. A split second.
Still some distance back, he made the kick. The ball sailed up slightly to the right, then arced left like Sanchez had conjured a little of David Beckam’s magic. The trajectory sent it curving straight in for a score.
Unfortunately for Sanger, Bullard’s goalie expertly made the catch. No goal. No redemption.
“We gave them two goals to start the game, and that’s never going to go well,” Apaches coach Alex Gutierrez said after the
Mike Nemeth / Sanger Herald
Omreep Mander unleashes the free kick that puts Sanger back into the game at Bullard on Jan. 4.
(loudly) from the sideline. “Talking, talking, talking.” He extended his arms above his head and opened and closed his hands as he spoke.
Sophomore forward Luis Villegas fired off a shot on the Bullard goal. The ball didn’t find its mark, but the push by Villegas and his teammates put the Knights on the defensive. They met the other Apaches.
Seconds later Sanger defender Hunter Reick, a junior, turned away a scoring attempt by Bullard’s Christian Lopez. Then Apache Ethan Saephanh, a freshman midfielder, made a shot on the Knights’ goal followed by another by Villegas and two more by freshman forward Sebastian Padilla.
This was a different game.
Gutierrez said he wants those Apaches to show up for the team’s next nine league games. “If we come out like we did in the second half in every game, we’ll do so much better,” he said.
See Soccer, Page 2B
game.
Bullard’s Tobin Preston,
a senior defender, scored the first goal for the Knights about 11
minutes into the game, and Michael Gonzalez, a senior midfielder, scored the second about a dozen minutes later.
But that was the first half. The second is an entirely different story. The Apaches who came out after the halftime huddle
with their coaches played like the fired-up team that dispatched Selma 5-0 before Christmas.
“That’s it,” Gutierrez said
The Wilson girls basketball team, coached by Sanger alums Bug Ambriz and Amanda Alba, were invited to the Save Mart Center and honored as the team of the game.
Wilson girls get to see Bulldogs vs. Aggies
By Mike Nemeth
Sanger Herald
Fresno State junior guard Candice White drained her shot from behind the three-point arc in the second quarter, making a statement and marking a comeback for the Bulldogs against visiting Utah State.
In the stands and very close to the courtside action, a team of visiting fourth- and fifth-graders jumped to their feet and cheered with the rest of the crowd in the Save Mart Center on Jan. 3. The girls paid close attention to every move, every pass, every shot.
The night was one fourth- grader Nancy Castro said she wouldn’t forget. “It’s pretty good,” she said,
briefly tearing her eyes from the action.
For Castro and many of her teammates from the Wilson Elementary girls basketball team, this was their first time attending college-level basketball game at Fresno’s biggest indoor venue. For some, it was their first time at the Save Mart Center.
And they were treated like royalty. After all, they are Bulldogs, too.
David Garza, who spent the past six years as Sanger High’s basketball coach, facilitated the trip. He worked with university officials to get his Bulldogs named Team of the Game for the night. The smaller Bulldogs got to walk out to center court flanked by cheerleaders and their
coaches during a break in the play. Pictures were taken. Smiles were shared. Some of the younger faces betrayed a little bit of shock at receiving all that attention.
“Great experience for these girls,” Garza said.
Prior to the game, he and Wilson coaches Alexandrea “Bug” Ambriz and Amanda Alba had just crammed onto an elevator with some other older Fresno State fans to descend to the privileged lower level. Some of the girls squealed with delight as the elevator dropped, prompting questions from the assembled fans, asking if the girls had ever been on an elevator before.
A couple assured the fans that they had.
Still, the experience and their reactions proved they planned to have a blast. Garza, Wilson’s new curriculum support provider and athletic director, took it all in with an expression that said he knew they would.
“They say when a kid steps on a college campus for the first time, there’s a high probability that they will attend the school when they go to college,” he said. “Maybe we’ll have a future Wilson/Fresno State Bulldog here.”
Yoselin De Los Santos, a fourth-grader, was impressed. “It’s cool,” she said, sitting on the padded fold-down chairs near the court. “I saw them dribbling. They were passing.”
And they scored. She and the rest of her team stood and clapped when the announcer introduced each Fresno State Bulldog, and the younger players reacted to every play the Bulldogs made against the Aggies.
Fresno State, 7-7 overall, pulled off a 57-56 win to the delight of their new- found fans from Sanger. Freshman Aly Gamez led the Bulldogs with 17 points, followed by White with 15. Freshman Maddi Utti scored 12 points.
Hailey Bassett of the Aggies scored a game-high 22 points and pulled down 11 rebounds.
Wilson fifth-grader Anahi Medrano participated at halftime in a scavenger hunt with teammate Alyssa
Samorano, collecting a list of several things from people in the stands. The task required being somewhat fearless and approaching strangers, but the Wilson Bulldogs didn’t hesitate. They ran.
And Fresno State treated them to free T-shirts. They even won a Me-N-Eds pizza, which was brought tothematadeadrunby a cheerleader. And even though they had eaten pizza in the Wilson Elementary cafeteria prior to their departure that night, they devoured the fresh pie.
Ten of the 15 Wilson players made the trip.
Ambriz said she loves her team. The former Apache basketball standout plans
See Wilson, Page 2B
Miike Nemeth / Sanger Herald