Palo Duro looks to keep the good times rolling in regional quarterfinals
The Palo Duro boys soccer team is no stranger to success on the pitch.
The Dons advanced to the regional semifinals last year, the regional finals two years ago and are 20-2-0 on the year with a District 3-5A championship to their name. It's been an impressive run over the past few seasons.
Ask interim head coach Shaun Massie, he'll tell you that past experience has helped this year's team accomplish all that they have.
“We’ve got an older team with a lot of juniors and seniors," he said. "We’ve also got a few freshmen and sophomores that have stepped up really big for us. It’s the perfect mix of everything going into this playoff run.”
Of course, it also helps having a player like Jaime Carrillo on the team.
Carrillo, a senior, was the Amarillo Globe-News Preseason Player of the Year and is a two-time POY following his sophomore and junior seasons. He has 45 goals and 16 assists this year including the playoffs and is committed to continue his soccer career at the Division I level next season at UT Rio Grande Valley.
Carrillo has always been an outstanding player, but Massie points out that this year he's elevated his game by getting his teammates more involved.
“He’s matured a lot," Massie said. "He’s really taken that burden of scoring the goals for the team. He’s just so dangerous that teams can’t switch off and not know where he is, but he’ll draw so much attention that we have other guys that can score goals. We’ve got other guys with double digit goal marks on the season.”
Adrian Ruiz is one of those players. He's scored 18 goals on the year while Jaime Martinez leads the team with 19 assists. Danny Garcia, a transfer from Randall, has played an enormous role in his first year with the program, too. He's scored 10 goals and assisted on nine of them.
Massie emphasized the importance of Garcia's addition to the team this year.
“He’s been huge because he came in and has been a starter since I’ve been here," Massie said. "He’s one of those guys that has reached double digits in goals and is big on assists. It’d be kind of scary to not have Danny.”
Further good news for the Dons, they get to play the regional quarterfinal match at 7 p.m. Friday against Lubbock Monterey in the home confines of Dick Bivins Stadium. The bad news is that at this point of the playoffs, every opponent is a serious challenge. That's the case for this game as the Plainsmen are undefeated on the season at 20-0-4.
The Dons are a team capable of beating anyone, however, and they know what they have to do to pull it off.
“We’re going to have to show up and compete for 80 minutes," Massie said. "In these playoff games it comes down to when you’re in front of the goal, you have to score. In a game of this caliber against a good opponent like Monterey, you might only get one or two chances. Sometimes the difference between a good team and a great team is the great teams are in front of the goal and they score.”
This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Palo Duro looks to keep the good times rolling in regional quarterfinals
