What a dilemma! Lakeside Blue Ridge vs. Tucson Desert Christian

What a dilemma! Lakeside Blue Ridge vs Tucson Desert Christian at Udall Park tomorrow afternoon at 6 p.m. A very interesting soccer matchup against two teams I'm very familiar with.

Why the dilemma? Well, I'll tell you. My better half, Sue Crain, is the mother of Bryon Crain, the head soccer coach for the Blue Ridge Yellow Jackets. One of my buddies, Mike Steele, who is a teammate of mine on my Tucson Old Timers (TOTS) baseball team, is the assistant coach for Desert Christian...and to top that, his son, Caleb, is one of the Eagles top players. Caleb, a senior, is one of the main reasons Desert Christian is sporting an 8-2 record, its latest win coming recently over Willcox, 1-0. And you guessed it...it was the younger Steele, of course, who scored the lone goal. And then there's Bryon's team. Wow! Sue and I, along with a couple of her grandchildren, drove up to Pinetop two weeks ago and watched the Yellow Jackets tangle with a team from Round Valley.

Well, I saw more goals in one half of play than I've seen over the last 10 years. Blue Ridge could have broken the single game scoring record for the school on that particular Saturday morning, but Coach Crain pulled the starting lineup early in the second half and I believe the score ended up 10-0. Blue Ridge is the defending state champions and they look like they're ready to knock on the door and go for a repeat!

Back in the mid-90s, I covered high school sports as a reporter for a local paper in Phoenix, and I can't tell you how many times I witnessed a 1-0 affair, or, for that matter, how many matches I watched were the outcome came down to penalty kicks. Boy, has times changed. Blue Ridge is 9-0 and the Yellow Jackets have scored 63 goals this season. As for Desert Christian, they can find the netting as well. The Eagles have pushed through 38 goals. That's 101 goals between the two schools.

What a kick Friday afternoon's matchup should be!

As an added note: If you go to the soccer match, check out Blue Ridge's top players: #8 Trey Cavanaugh (12 goals this season), #9 Salvador Ramirez (5 goals, 8 assists) and #11 Jake Washburn (7 goals). As for Desert Christian, take a gander at #2 Scott Waller, who works in tandem with #3, Mr. Steele.