Sweet Home 3, Taft 2
After a weird opening that left Taft ahead 1-0 out of the gate, the Huskies defeated Taft 3-2 on Sept. 10 at home in girls soccer.
Taft took control immediately and casually took the ball to the net to score on their first possession.
“I don’t know what happened,” said Coach Ramiro Santana. “They looked at the ball walking by.”
Taft moved the ball up the field toward the corner, dribbling it around the Huskies and then put it into the goal.
“I thought, ‘Boy, this is going to be a long night,’” Santana said.
Then it wasn’t.
The Huskies took over the game, taking shot after shot, bouncing several off the bar or narrowly missing the goal and dominating time of possession.
“It was fun,” Santana said. “I knew before the game the girls were excited.”
He figures they probably just “needed to get the spider webs out of their mind,” he said. Within another 10 minutes, freshman Milah Weld took the ball from the right, dribbled and scored.
Ten minutes later she did it again on a corner kick into the midfield, Santana said. One of the mids took it forward and got it into Weld’s feet.
The Huskies led 2-1 at halftime.
About 15 minutes into the second half, Allison Wickline took a long shot, Santana said. It bounced back, and Weld was right there to put it back and score the ball.
Taft scored again 32 minutes into the second half.
Santana was pleased with the win, but he’s still worried.
“We’re just trying to get the girls to think, and this is the first time they’re all playing together,” he said.
“They’re all young. The three returning varsity players are juniors. “We’re just getting to know each other and have to play besides scrimmaging with themselves.”
He has been playing them all together, and this week he is planning to sort out a final varsity squad for this season, he said. Newport, scheduled for Tuesday, will be the first look at the varsity team.
While the team is working through its inexperience, it lost a senior for two or three weeks, Lilly Barton, who was injured last week.
“I’ll be hurting,” Santana said. “She’s one of my seniors. It will be a rough year.”
But the team is looking better every day, and the girls are gaining experience, he said. They’re small and not physical, but “we will give them heck. Everybody’s got to work to beat us.”
The Huskies are 1-2.