By: Dallas Harris and Alejandro Morales
Redwood women’s soccer team have once again clinched a league title, this time being the EYL title, with a record of 7-0.
After helping her team secure another league title, Olivia Saenz ’23 says, “It feels good, we haven’t played EYL yet but knowing that we have won and it’s our first year playing feels really good.”
Saenz also says, “The next thing for us is playoffs, we still want to finish off EYL strong still and win our last 3 games, but the next goal for us is definitely playoffs, we definitely want to win because these last years have been really hard on us which remains so we have a good goal for that.”
When asked about a new personal goal that Saenz has set for herself she says, “Win playoffs because we have gotten scored on a lot and as a keeper it obviously sucks so obviously to win and block as many shots as we can.” Being one of the team captains Saenz says, “Definitely by encouraging, every team needs encouragement because if not then you have a dead team, you need that strong energy.”
After winning another league title, Dakota Espinoza ’23 says, “It feels amazing, It’s really exciting and makes us excited for what’s to come.” Espinoza also says, “Our team’s goal is now winning valley, so we are getting in the right mindset for playoffs and just making sure we play our game and stay strong.”
When asked about a new personal goal that Espinoza has set for herself she says, “I want to win valley really bad. This is my last year so I want to leave behind a good legacy, just encourage the girls, and hopefully not let anyone else score against us for the rest of the season.”
Espinoza also says, “I just work on encouraging the girls, we’re all really close and when everyone gets along it makes things a lot better and I just try to push them to play their best.”
Head Coach Jason Vieira says, “Now that we won league we are going to start preparing for playoffs and we will be a division 1 team, so it will be a real challenge.” Vieira’s mentality that he has instilled in the girls is, “That they can play with anybody, throughout the season we have proven that we can play with the best teams in the state, so they just have that mindset that the other team should have fear and not the other way around.” Vieira credits the team’s success thus far to the fact that, “We have really good players, and they believe in themselves and believe in what we are trying to do and they are super coachable.”
Vieira says that the biggest challenge has been, “Injures. We’ve had a lot of girls get hurt. Roxy Bahr is out for the season, Paityn Bruce hasn’t played at all this season, and Ellie Gilbert with her ankle will probably sit for a few games, so just overcoming that and having girls step in for injured players.”
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