Benny Westcott
A 5-2 loss at Marshfield (3-2-1) on Sept. 13 put Sweet Home girls soccer at 1-2-1 on the young season entering league play.
The Pirates held a 3-1 lead after one half of play, scoring in the second, eighth, and 39th minutes. Sweet Home got on the board in the 35th minute, when midfielder Peyton Markell scored on a “hard kick from pretty long distance, right into the corner of the goal,” Head Coach Ramiro Santana said.
But Marshfield responded with two more scores in the 11th and 16th minutes of the second half. Sweet Home’s second goal came in minute 34 of the second frame, when midfielder Rylee Markell put the ball in the back of the net over a Marshfield wall on a penalty kick.
Missing players cost the Huskies in the game, Santana said. Defender Zoe Garret hurt her foot practicing at home the day before the game, and is predicted to be out for two weeks.
Midfielder Faith Johnson and defender Arielle Erickson also did not make the game.
“I think if we would have had our key players that we were missing, it would have been a different game,” Santana said.
Still, he took positives from the match. “It was a good game,” the coach said. “We could have done a little better, but circumstances and little mistakes that we made put their score a little higher than we should have had. And we could have scored more too. We missed some good shots.”
Not counting goals, Marshfield put 14 shots on frame, while Sweet Home had 13.
The Huskies start league play at Stayton (0-4) at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 22, followed by another road game at Cascade on Sept. 27. Their next home game will be Sept. 29 against Newport.