San Diego Mesa College women’s soccer team defeated Imperial Valley College on Sept. 14 with a final score of 9-0 under the lights of Merril Douglas Stadium.
In the first half, the lady Olympians and IVC Arabs fought head to head to control the ball ending the first half in favor of the Olympians 1-0.
“We started out rough in the beginning, it was one nothing at half…we were getting a little frantic inside the 18, final third scoring. Second half we came out and calmed it down a lot and connected a lot of passes and relaxed on the ball and that’s when we got our good outcome,” Captain Sydney Blackman said.
Throughout the game, the defense moved together in a diamond shape holding up its boundary and shutting out the Arabs.
Head coach Todd Curran commented on the biggest difference between the first and second half.
“The biggest difference is that we settled the ball and we played the feet and we knocked the ball around rather than trying to force the ball. There’s too many times where we think we can fit a ball into space and through the ball over the top of the defense and it just doesn’t work. You have to play the feet. So once we started to play the feet, knocking the ball around and creating space because of the power ball movement, the girls did well and started to finish the ball [into the net],” Curran said.
At the 11th minute in the second half, freshman Bianca Murrojo, Criminal Justice major, began the scoring. After it bounced off of another’s player’s chest, Murrojo struck the ball with the intention of passing it to the left side of the field, and ended up curving the ball into the top left corner of the net. Murrojo dedicated the goal to her father in Afghanistan.
“It bounced off her chest and I tried to cross it… since my dad is not here he told me to score. He is in Afghanistan so he told me that every game I play I should dedicate myself to play really good for him. I wish he were here to watch it but at least they recorded it so I can just send it to him,” Murrojo said.
A total of 6 freshmen players scored by the end of the game; Veronica Ramirez, Alejandra Gomez, Bianca Murrojo, Ana Murillo, Hannah Jackson, and Katelyn Griffith.
Briana Stone and the defense held down their side of the field while the offense was unrelenting. At approximately the 24th minute, midfielder Veronica Perez took a shot that bounced off the top post and back onto the field, landed near Veronica Ramirez and was shot in for the 4th goal of the game.
Although a team of mostly freshmen, sophomore captain Tiffany Ysassi said, “ in the beginning it was kind of challenging just because there was a lot of new people, a lot of new talent. It was just hard to figure out who was working with who and what was going on with each other. As the games progressed, we finally started clicking its getting a lot better from out first game we worked really hard out first game and the second game we were kind of off but now we‘re starting to enter a flow and we’re figuring each other out so it has its obstacles and its offsets but we’re doing really well and I’m excited to see what we have in store.”
With a seasoned head coach on staff and motivated team players, Mesa women’s soccer team season looks promising. The next home game is against Southwestern College on Tuesday Sept. 25 at 6 p.m.