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Deja Erickson’s goal lifts top-ranked Arbor View over No. 2 Palo Verde

Before Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump took the stage in Las Vegas for the final presidential debate Wednesday, a pair of girls soccer teams were scuffling 20 miles northwest of the Thomas & Mack Center to settle one more hotly contested argument.

A debate of which school reigns supreme in Southern Nevada.

Arbor View junior forward Deja Erickson made sure it was her squad.

Erickson scored two goals, including the game-winner with two minutes remaining, to lift the top-ranked Aggies to a 2-1 road win over No. 2 Palo Verde in a match that could determine the Northwest League champion.

“We knew it was coming for her,” Arbor View coach Jay Howard said. “She’s been battling a little bit of an ankle injury earlier in the year, but she’s played through it because she’s such a tough kid. She was all over the place — fast, aggressive and she really defended well, too.”

Arbor View (13-0-2, 9-0-1), which has won the last four state titles, now appears to be headed for a seventh consecutive league title with only two matches remaining after passing its toughest test of the season.

“I thought we played well the majority of the day,” Howard said. “We’re glad we got the win out of it. The girls definitely wanted it. We talked about, regardless of the result today, there’s more to play for. But they wanted it.”

Erickson, who scored the first half’s only goal in the 14th minute off an assist from Melanie Ara, was forced to play hero late when it looked as though the teams were headed for a second draw this season. Palo Verde’s Macee Barlow had just taken a cross from Holly Lindholm and scored the equalizer with six minutes left to swing all the momentum to the home side.

“We got caught out a little bit, but it’s a credit to Palo,” Howard said. “They’re a really good team, with good players. When Macee gets her chance, she’s going to put it away. It was a good goal.”

Arbor View, though, had other plans than just settling for a tie.

Erickson took a pass from Karissa Martinez in the left corner cut to the right on a pair of defenders and fired away. Erickson’s ball deflected off a defender’s knee before floating over Palo Verde goalkeeper Kailee Barnhard for the final margin.

“The nerves and anticipation — because we’ve been compared to them so many times and told we’d lose — I think that helped,” Erickson said. “We felt the pressure once their student section started yelling at us and talking to us and getting into our heads. But it helped.”

Arbor View’s Haylee Niemann made five saves in goal.

Barnhard had 10 saves for Palo Verde (14-2-2, 8-1-1).

“Decent game, but we definitely could have had some better technical play throughout the first half,” Palo Verde coach Frank Messina said. “But other than that, I think we played a really good game. We definitely crawled back.

“I told them after the game, ‘Let it go.’ We basically lost the game on a deflection.“

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