'Super Mario': Rodriguez, Spartans take dramatic 2-1 win over Del Norte

BERNALILLO — Mario saves the day.

This is not the synopsis of your child’s favorite video game. It’s what happened at Spartan Stadium on Tuesday afternoon.

Behind two second-half goals by senior captain Mario Rodriguez, the Bernalillo boys soccer team took a 2-1 victory over Del Norte to improve to 10-6 on the year and 2-2 in district.

“It was a good win; we had a slow start with some mistakes,” Rodriguez said. “We are trying new things with new formations, but we were able to win the game in the end.”

As Rodriguez mentioned, both teams were slow out of the gates. There were a plethora of scoring chances for both the Spartans and Knights, including multiple Del Norte corner kicks coming in the closing minutes of the first half. Even with the offensive opportunities, there were still no goals to show for it.

The second half opened up with more of the same. A lot of whistles and stops in play built up a sense of frustration between the teams, with both wanting to break the scoreless drought.

With more than 20 minutes left in the match, Bernalillo’s Lucas Cervantes broke through the Del Norte backline to find himself with a great look on net. Cervantes fired, but was met with an excellent save from Knight goalkeeper Aaron Mendoza. It started to feel as if it was just one of the days for the Spartan offense.

That was up until Bernalillo was awarded a free kick about 30 yards out from the goal. With 13 minutes left, the Spartans chose Rodriguez to take the kick.

As the whole crowd watched on, Rodriguez delivered a beauty of a boot on the net. Bending in, the shot hit the crossbar and deflected down into the goal.

The scoring drought was over, and Bernalillo was minutes away from a 10th win.

Rodriguez’s fifth goal of the year took the earlier Spartan frustration and channeled that energy into momentum. Bernalillo was off and running again, and a costly Del Norte turnover set up a massive Spartan counterattack.

On a great cross into the box, the pass found the cleat of, ironically enough, Rodriguez once again. Just two minutes after his opening goal, Mario added another for good measure as he snuck it by the keeper Mendoza.

A 2-0 lead with under 10 minutes to go had the Spartans ready to celebrate. But the Knights weren’t headed to the bus quite yet. Del Nortes’ Johan Azrate Moreno maneuvered his way past the Bernalillo defense in stoppage time, putting one away to make it 2-1.

Tension started to rise as the Spartan faithful was begging for the final whistle to blow. Bernalillo tried to clear the ball out of their zone … but it went right to Moreno.

The junior midfielder dribbled in and fired on net. Just high. Game over.

It felt like all of Route 550 let out a collective sigh of relief when that shot missed. In the final minute, Rodriguez and the Spartans escaped with the home win.

Winning their last three of four, the Spartans will hit the road next to face Hope Christian in a big district 4A-6 matchup.