Southside boys’ coach Moodie Ihmeidan doesn’t believe the Mavericks are a middle of the road soccer team.

Ihmeidan believes the Mavs — who face 7A-Central co-leader Northside today at Mayo-Thompson Stadium — are much better than their overall 8-7 record suggests. The Mavs, 3-3 in the 7A-Central, beat Little Rock Central last week to even their conference slate.


“That’s all it is — they just have to believe,” Ihmeidan said. “We’ve got the talent, it’s just the mindset.”

Southside’s nemesis has been its inability to overcome early deficits.

“When we get down, we tend to get down mentally,” Ihmeidan said. “We lost 7-2 to North Little Rock, and we were only down a couple of goals and they gave up some goals. It’s a mental game. You have to keep playing, and that’s what we try and stress.”

Derek Gutierrez leads the Mavericks with 15 goals this season. Teammates Benji Flores and Dustin Lopez scored within a span of a minute at the 25-minute mark of the second half. Southside then played solid defense down the stretch.

“We’ve still got to learn to put games away,” Ihmeidan said. “We could have gotten one more, but we’ll take the win.”

Coach Jeremy Davis won’t have to give much of a pregame speech prior to today’s clash with Northside.


The Southside girls, who held on for a crucial 4-3 win over Little Rock Central Friday, cap the first round of 7A-West play today with a short trip to Northside. The Lady Bears and Mavericks split last season.

“We look forward to the challenge of playing against our rival (today),” Davis said. “From looking at the scores, they don’t get scored on a lot, and tend to play a lot of close games. They got us the first game last year, so I am sure our girls will be ready.”

Rachel Smith leads the Mavericks (10-4, 4-2) with a team-high 11 goals. Kelly Carson has nine, followed by Nancy Mendoza with six and Moorea Kleck and Dianna Guerrero with five apiece.

The Lady Bears (4-8, 1-5) got their first 7A-Central win of the season on April 4 against North Little Rock but are coming off a 3-0 road loss at Cabot on Friday.
