Tigers Roll On, Face St. George Here Friday

CONNELL - After beat­ing Northport on Saturday, the WP Tigers move on to host a tough St. George on Friday and Northwest Chris­tian or Valley Christian on Saturday. Both games are at home in Prescott.

The Tigers could not be stopped against winless Northport and against winds of up to 50 miles per hour blowing through the field at Connell. The team logged 16 goals and allowed Northport only one ineffective shot on goal compared to its own barrage of 63 shots.

"We kind of knew going in," assistant coach Jay Potts said about their toothless opponents. "We tried to ap­proach it as an important game and it was good experi­ence for kids who normally don't get to play that much."

Ivan Figueroa launched the all-game scoring drive with an unassisted goal in the second minute, followed in the 4th, 12th, 15th, 18th, 19th, 22nd and 40th minutes by goals from Christian Caro, Figueroa, Rodrigo Gonzalez, Johnny Escalante, Figueroa (twice in a row) and Tyler Fedderson. The score at halftime was 8-0.

After the break, Escalante resumed the onslaught with a goal in the 41st minute, while Figueroa, Alberto Mendez, Enrique Balderas, Paul Zamora (twice in a row) and Fedderson (twice in a row) scored in the 42nd, 44th, 49th, 69th, 73rd, 74th and 75th minutes.

With their first playoff game behind them, the Ti­gers move into a much more challenging round this week­end. At 2 p.m. at Prescott on Friday, they face the St. George Dragons, who have already beat WP twice this season.

Potts said his players are eager for the third matchup, now that they have had sev­eral more weeks to hone their skills and make some adjustments in strategy. They are emphasizing a somewhat stronger defense, with three or four Tigers back, com­pared to just two earlier.

"We're a little bit different team on defense," he said.

In their first encounter against St. George on Sept. 28, the Tigers lost 6-2, but they narrowed their deficit to 2-0 in the second game on Oct. 11. Since that home game against their rivals from Spokane, the Tigers have given up only two goals in six games.

"What we've said all sea­son is that it's not about being good in September or October," Potts said. "It's about being good in Novem­ber."

Potts said the Tigers are ready to play the Dragons "tough," adding that it's hard to beat the same team three times for any opponent. "I think it will be a very good match," he said. "This is what we've been playing for."

The Tigers have no in­juries. After an absence of three games, striker Ernes­to Valdovinos and forward Luis Garcia are back on the team, allowing the Tigers to field a full team of starters this weekend.

The Tigers get two chances to advance to the Top 8. If they win against the Dragons, they will play against the winner of Fri­day's game between North­west Christian and Valley Christian. If they lose, they will play the loser of that game on Saturday.