“Sometimes it just feels like the soccer gods are against us,” senior Sydney Schilling said. “It’s not always a matter of who’s better or what the record is. Soccer’s funny sometimes.”
It would seem as if the soccer gods had fun tormenting the varsity girls soccer team over the past two seasons. On Tuesday, Jan. 28, the girls fell short to Oviedo 1-0 in the regional semifinal game, the same way the girls lost last year.
The game was slow to start, with both teams heading into the half tied 0-0, but both teams came out aggressive to in the second half. Freshman Sarah Thrush got hit and was sent to the ground three times, while junior Kiele Mohre was sent off the field with an ankle sprain with nine minutes left to play in the game. On the other side of the ball, junior Ru Mucherera received the only yellow card of the night, after she was sandwiched between two Oviedo players and threw one to the ground.
“I had to remind my team not to stoop down to [Oviedo’s] level,” Mucherera said.
In fact, the only score of the game came off a foul. Oviedo midfielder Sarah Buckley made a penalty kick from midfield, which put the Lions up 1-0.
“I felt like I was going to throw up,” senior Alex Mastrobuono said. “I felt like everything that we had worked so hard for the whole season went down the drain .”
The girls had played Oviedo three times prior to the regional semifinal. They went 1-1 in the regular season, including a shutout, as well as a win in the district final, 3-0. The girls never failed to put up at least three points against Oviedo throughout the entire season, however, Oviedo was not what worried the girls when they scored.
“Instead of focusing on what we needed to do to win the game, we focused on what we needed to do in order to not lose,” Schilling said. “That was the biggest deciding factor of the game, nervousness that we only had 20 minutes left in our season.”
However bad the loss may seem, the girls will always look back on this season with some positives.
“We were the underdogs this season,” Mastrobuono said. “We came from a low point where we were tying Lake Howell, and playing teams that shouldn’t even be playing on the same field as us. We were underdogs throughout the season, and the fact that we made it this far, no one thought that would happen.”
The girls look to come back with a strong team next season. The team has 11 returners. The players and head coach Angie Densberger alike have the same goal in mind: to make it further.
“You’ll have bumps in the road, and your true character is how you bounce back,” Densberger said. “I hope the returning players can remember what this feels like and can change it next so we don’t have the same result.”