The score was 5-0, but Coach Ramiro Santana said Sweet Home’s girls soccer team’s loss to Estacada could have gone differently if a few shots hadn’t bounced off the posts and a few other breaks had gone the Huskies’ way.
The season opener on Thursday, Sept. 6, gave many of the the rebuilding Huskies a taste of high school varsity.
“We have 15 to 17 new faces on this team,” Santana said. “I lost 15 kids from last year. This is totally a rebuilding year.”
Sweet Home came out firing against the Rangers, hitting the post six times in the first 20 minutes.
“I guess it was not our day,” said Santana. “The only good thing they had was their goalie. She was the lifesaver for their team.”
The Huskies also missed two penalty kicks, one by Katie Virtue and the other by Ashley Wickline.
When the referee gave Wickline her penalty shot, Santana said it happened too fast for him to send another player to take the kick and she lined one to the goalie.
“We had our chances,” he said. “We would have won if we had scored. We were more on their side than our side throughout the game.”
The futile effort eventually got to his team mentally and that’s when the visitors made their shots.
“You’re shooting, shoting, and you don’t score. The mentality starts to get after you,” he said.
Santana said the Huskies will be working on their shooting and he plans to use the next two non-league games, at Central on Tuesday and at Taft on Thursday, to develop a varsity line-up in preparation for the league opener versus La Pine at home on Thursday, Sept. 20.
The junior varsity team trailed Estacada 3-0 before evening the score and eventually losing 5-4.
“Both teams could have done that,” he said. “We certainly had our opportunities. It was just not there.”