#10 Miranda Ortiz, ‘28, scored 4 goals in just 8 minutes on January 7th against Porterville.
By: Noah Dilsaver
When asked how she felt about scoring the goals, Ortiz said, “It felt good. It helped to also bring the intensity up to scoring more.” The feeling she had following the 4th goal was so overwhelming that it was: “what’s the word? Like surprised [that] I scored that many goals. I was shocked.”
Ortiz explained that “working hard at practice and on my own just working on my placement and ball skills,” was her specific strategy and preparation to help her achieve this performance.
Ortiz credits her success in the game to her teammates and the connection on the field that helped her to know when the ball would be passed to her to finish the play.
“It was our first league game and we wanted to have a good start to the game, so for her to get us going early like that was huge for our team. It was still pretty cool to see.” Varsity Girls Soccer Head Coach Jason Viera described when asked what the atmosphere was like on the field. He explained Ortiz’s skills and strategy used on the field was her “exceptional ball control. When Miranda has the ball at her feet she is a very tough player to stop.”
“She also does a great job making runs and putting herself in a position to score.” Viera confirmed that Ortiz had been showing signs of exceptional performance leading up to this game saying, “She’s had a good season so far, especially for a freshman. So it really isn’t all that surprising she was able to score so many so quickly,” said Coach Vieira.
Coach Viera expressed the close knit type of relationship this specific team has with each other. When speaking of his team as a whole he said, “everyone is always supportive for their teammates regardless who scores or does something awesome on the field.”
Coach Vieira feels the contributors to Ortiz’s success was the team’s “overall skill level between us and our opponent that match, probably had a lot to do with it. We dominated the midfield that whole game so all our forwards really had to worry about was staying up and scoring goals.”
Coach Vieira plans to build on this achievement for Ortiz and the team’s performance overall by encouraging her to work on improving every day, “That comes with working hard in training, developing good habits on the field and improving on her conditioning,” says Coach Vieira
Coach Vieira think this performance will impact Ortiz’s confidence and motivation for future games. He expressed, “She’s a very confident player to begin with, but I think the individual and team success we have had thus far will only help Miranda in the future.”
As for Ortiz, her goals for the rest of the season, after such a strong start as this is to, “Just continue working and getting even better so I can help the team later on in the season.”
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