JV Girls Soccer Opens EYL Season Against El D and Porterville

Players share their insights on how the two games played out to start their EYL season.

By: Ariana Lopez and Sophia Rodriguez

On Tuesday, January 9th, the JV (Junior Varsity) Girls soccer team played against El Diamante and came home with a final score of 0-0.

Apple Espino, ’27, number twenty-five on the field, says “El D is competitive, but I felt like we didn’t play as competitive as we could’ve.”

When asked about her performance, Espino says “I feel like I did good in the first five minutes but I could’ve done better in communicating, looking for open spaces, and finding my teammates on the field.”

Espino says, “In the last minutes we were playing the ball better and getting more shots in.”

“Something that we as a team could have improved on was communicating and El D was talking more than us,” says Espino.

Some good personal highlights for Espino were, “I did well in sending some good balls and distributing the ball further out.”

Caroline Richardson, ’27, number three on the field says, “El D is the most competitive team in our league and it was a challenge, but we kept the ball on their side of the half most of the time.”

Richardson says “I played very well, very aggressively. I got some good shots on goal, sadly I didn’t make any of them.”

Richardson says that some good takeaways the girls had were, “We had some great through balls and crosses, we were just never able to finish because the goalie on El D was really good, but our passing was really good as well.”

Richardson says an improvement that they could have made was “Communicating more. We were kind of quiet on the field. If we communicated more we could’ve had some better plays.”

Richardson explains a personal highlight that she had for herself was, “I had a run down the line and I made a cut-back and then I shot it and it was a really great shot in the corner, but the goalie ended up diving to catch it.”

On Thursday, January 11th, the JV Girls soccer team beat Porterville by a score of 4-0.

Sarai Lua De La Cruz, ’27, number twelve on the field says about Porterville, “at one point it was competitive but we had more possession and by the end of the first half we picked it up. Second half we got the most possession.”

Lua De La Cruz says she “had a lot of frustrating moments on the field, and I felt like I could have done way better but, I think I did alright.

A lot of good moments come from the games played and Lua De La Cruz says, “I think when one of my teammates she reflected off the goalie and scored. I also had a good assist and everybody did well.”

Lua De La Cruz says her team could have improved on “talking way more and work better as a team.”

Alyssa Lewis, ’26, number one on the field playing as a goalie for Redwood, says the competition against Porterville was “competitive and they had a lot of spirit, and a lot of determination to just play well”

Lewis says her personal performance was “pretty good. I did a lot of communication throughout the game.”

One good moment Lewis witnessed on the field was “one of the players was able to run the ball all the way up the field and assist a goal.”

Overall, Lewis says her team could have improved on “communication and spreading out more.”

Lewis says she was “able to keep my defense on check when goal kicks were made.”

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