By Seth Lopez
VISALIA- Redwood girls soccer is having an amazing season this year, proving their dominance, while defeating El Diamante during their game, last Friday; they ended up going 2-0, with goals from Elise Hyde and Roxana Bahr. The miners were the only team that could have stopped the Rangers from sweeping this year’s league title.
The El Diamante Miners took on the Redwood Rangers in a very physical game, with the Rangers having the home team advantage. The start time of the game was 6pm at the Mineral King Bowl. The Miner’s head coach, Jack Sriphaseuth, said, “Redwood likes to use the width so we decided to try and take that away, we didn’t do very good in that but our team worked very hard.”
The Miners began the game very vibrant hoping to defeat the Rangers. They started the game with the ball, after winning the coin toss. Ultimately, the Miners were not able to get the ball past Redwood’s defense on their first possession and quickly gave up the ball to the Rangers. As Redwood moved the ball up the field, the Rangers received a corner kick early in the game that ended in a goal, shot and scored by Elise Hyde in the fourth minute. This gave Redwood an early lead of 1-0 over El Diamante.
After that goal, the Miners came out ready to take on Redwood, eagerly trying to score after getting the ball back. The game began to get very physical; there were a lot of fouls and some hard fights for the ball between the competing teams. After the first goal, El Diamante tried relentlessly to score, however, their efforts were left with a score of 1-0 at halftime.
Redwood started the second half with the ball, trying to get something going quickly to extend their lead over the Miners.
In the 53rd minute, Rangers forward McKenna Cook was fouled by an El Diamante player in the box. A foul in the box usually means a penalty kick but this was not the case. The referees deemed it as a non-direct foul and it was just a free-kick. Redwood’s head coach, Jason Vieira, said, “According to the rules that should have been a penalty kick. I am glad it didn’t matter at the end.”
During the 56th minute, Redwood received a corner kick that ended in a goal by Roxana Bahr. This extended their lead giving the Rangers breathing room, with a current score of 2-0.
With only five minutes left of the game, there was a glimpse of hope for El Diamante with a breakaway play. However, Redwood’s goalie, Olivia Saenz, had a huge save. The game had a final score of 2-0.
Tags: Elise Hyde, girls soccer, Olivia Saenz, rangers, redwood high school, Roxy Bahr