Gallery • 2 Photos

The varsity girls’ soccer team struggled in an unusually physical match against Diablo Athletic League opponent College Park on January 8 in Cougar Stadium.

The Falcons took the lead early, ending the 1st half with a 1-point advantage.

In the 2nd half, senior Cecila Campo scored the only goal for the Cougars to tie the game. However, College Park put another shot into the net in the closing minutes to beat their hosts, 2-1.

According to head coach Luis Pinto, his players were not accustomed to College Park’s style of play. “The ball was played a lot in the air which made us very uncomfortable. Now you have to go up in the air and challenge the players and challenge the bounce and then the play becomes very unpredictable which kind of cost us,” he said. 

Pinto was proud of his team for the maturity it showed in the heat of competition. “We stayed very composed. We were challenged in our chemistry, we were challenged in our bonding, we could have easily fallen apart and started pointing names but we stayed together and supported each other,” said Pinto

Sophomore Ainsley Murphy believed that the team was uncomfortable from the start. “We got thrown off because we weren’t able to complete as many passes, so we weren’t able to play our style of play as much,” she said. 

According to senior Devon Ortman, the loss means the team will “have to work harder in practices and in games to try to fix the simple things.”