Sweet Home girls soccer remained undefeated in this spring season, beating La Pine 2-0 on the road March 9, then tying Newport/Eddyville Charter 1-1 at home March 11.
Head Coach Ramiro Santana said that his team started controlling the ball right from the get-go against La Pine. Chloe Fairchild scored a goal for Sweet Home within the first two minutes of the match. Around the eighth minute, Jenna Wolthuis scored a second goal for the Huskies.
Santana then put some nonstarters in against La Pine. He noted how his roster is big and the contest was a non-league match.
“We were not worried pretty much the whole game,” he said. “There were very few times that they approached our goal side. We were able to play the whole team.”
Santana also rotated his players’ usual roles to get them experience playing in different positions, he said.
“Everybody played amazing,” said Santana. “They all did what they had to do.”
The Newport contest was tougher for the Sweet Home girls, but they were still able to come away with a tie.
“Newport has a lot of speed,” said Santana. “They know how to control the ball and they know how to play the ball around.”
He said it was the toughest game the Huskies have had so far this season.
The game was still scoreless at halftime. “We had shots and so did they,” said Santana. But neither team was able to capitalize.
Twenty minutes into the second half, Newport broke the scoreless tie by scoring off of a corner kick.
After that, “Our girls just kept doing the same thing,” Santana said. “They just kept playing and playing and pressuring.”
Eventually, Natalie Rodgers drew a penalty in Newport’s box and Madison Harris put the penalty kick in the net to tie the game at 1-1.
After that Sweet Home continued to put pressure on Newport, but Santana credited Newport’s “talented” goalie, who was able to keep Sweet Home scoreless after Harris’ goal.