The Huskies ended their girls varsity soccer season with a 2-2 tie at Newport Oct. 29.
“We were pretty even teams,” said Coach Ramiro Santana. Newport scored first three minutes into the game.
Maddie Harris scored for the Huskies in the minute seven, and the teams were tied 1-1 at halftime.
Twenty minutes in, Natalie Rodgers gave the Huskies a 2-1 lead on a penalty kick, Santana said, “then they scored in the minute 27. It was very competitive.”
“There was a lot of shooting,” Santana said. The Huskies took a shot 17 times, while Newport took nine shots.
Goalkeeper Mo Curtis “did amazing saves for us,” he said, “just like the goalie for Newport. There was a lot of competition on the goalies’ side. A lot had to do with our goalies, the saves. It was good. It was intense. It’s exciting.”
The Huskies end the season 2-8-2, one more tie and one more win than last year.
“We got a better record,” Santana said, and it was on a tough schedule that matched the Huskies up against Woodburn, Stayton and Philomath, all top-10 teams in the state rankings, in the first three games of league play.
All of them have a lot of speed, Santana said, and it’s hard to compete against it.
“We played them good for a certain amount of time till they figure it out individually,” Santana said. Instead of passing, the faster individuals were able to break away solo and do more damage.
Most of Sweet Home’s opponents have girls playing club ball when they’re young, Santana said. Sweet Home has just a couple.
Where many Sweet Home players are three-sport athletes, other Oregon West soccer players play soccer year round, Santana said. “So it’s a challenge for us.”
Against that backdrop, “we did better,” he said. “Our team got much better.”
If the Huskies were still in the Sky-Em, “we would’ve been up in the top, he said. Still, the challenges are “making us better.”
As a coach, “I’ve got to be able to do more to win,” he said.
The team will graduate five seniors, he said. They are Curtis, Hannah Powell, Karla Perez, Torree Hawken and Ashtyn Walker.