Staff
The girls lost their opening varsity soccer game to Elmira 3-0 on the road Thursday afternoon.
Coach Ramiro Santana said his team held off Elmira through the first half, but “that’s the only (pre-league) game I can see some of the JV players and see how they perform because I need some swing players.”
He ran his core varsity squad through the first half, with neither side able to connect on the goal, tying the game 0-0 at halftime. He began putting in JV players so he could scout them in the second half, and Elmira was able to score goals.
“We played pretty good,” Santana said. “We had more opportunities to score than they did.”
Santana said he feels good about his varsity’s chances had he been able to play the girls all game, but he needed to take advantage of the chance to get a look at JV players.
In the second half, “the JV played excellent,” Santana said, but they’re young, many of them freshmen. With the freshmen, “it’s a little too fast for them, but they did pretty good actually. I tink our JV team will be competing strongly at the JV level.”
It’s going to be rough on the varsity going into league, which was scheduled to begin at Woodburn on Tuesday and continue at home with Philomath on at 6:30 p.m. Thursday and Stayton at 6 p.m. next Tuesday.
With club programs, those schools are ahead of Sweet Home in soccer, Santana said, but his team is continually learning. He expects to “scare” some teams.