By Daniel Schmidt
THE OBSERVER
BEULAH — The Beauregard High School girls’ and boys’ soccer teams both earned convincing road victories over Beulah High School on Feb. 26.
The Lady Hornets (1-3) scored three goals in the opening 12 minutes to coast to a 10-0 win over the Lady Bobcats (0-3), while the Hornets (2-2) took advantage of the rainy weather and a young Bobcats (0-2) back line in a 12-0 victory.
Following the girls game, Beauregard girls’ and boys’ head coach Kelly Tubbs said it was the most unified the team had looked so far early in the season.
“I saw a lot of grit, determination and hard work that comes from practices day in and day out, cold weather, hot weather, it doesn’t matter,” Tubbs said. “That’s a group of girls who finally banded together, trusted their instincts, pushed the field and pushed the pace. I’ve been preaching it all season.”
Scoring came easy to the Lady Hornets early on as they made a concerted effort to drive the ball up the wings and then attack the middle of the field.
That led to six first half goals, including two from senior forward Alleria Dupree, who ended the game with a hat trick.
While the senior forward hasn’t played the sport competitively since she was seven years old, her old form quickly came roaring back against Beulah.
“It makes me start to understand what soccer really is and how it feels to grow a love for a sport that you haven’t played in either a long time or you haven’t played at all,” Dupree said. “It feels great. On behalf of the girls, it’s nice, and it just helps our confidence.”
Her third goal game less than five minutes into the second half, and three more goals, including the final one by Shelby Morgan, eventually ended the game with 13:08 left to play.
Dupree scored three goals, Lizzy Gonzales and Layla Pearce both added two goals and Jacky Lugo, adirah White and Morgan each contributed one goal.
The boys’ game saw the Hornets fare even better. In a game called at halftime, Tubbs said the result was the byproduct of consistent hard work since the program was started seven years ago.
“This has been years in the making, to be able to watch a game and not really have to direct or coach too much from the sideline,” Tubbs said. “Hats off to Beulah, they’ve got a good, solid foundation. They’re going to be a tough team in a couple of years.”
Despite strong rains, mud and a slow start, Beauregard took advantage of the excessive space in the Bobcats’ back line with long through balls.
That led to three goals in less than three minutes around the halfway point of the first quarter, and a frustrated Beulah squad could hardly keep the ball out of their waterlogged half of the field after that.
Senior forward Dalton Willis, who was one of three Hornets to score a hat trick, said his team needed to flush the result from their minds as quickly as possible.
“We played against a pretty young team, but we’re also pretty new to all this so I thought we had a good showing,” Willis said. “We’ve just got to move on and not put [this game] in our heads too much.”
Willis, Hector Gonzalez and Eric Marquez each scored three goals, and Jordan Griffin, Lester Fuentes and Kristopher Barreto chipped in one goal apiece.
