On Tuesday, March 25, the girls soccer team faced Millard North. In the final seconds of this tight contest, Millard North scored a goal making a tough loss for the Warriors. New head coach Nathan May is taking a step into a bigger role as he was an assistant coach last year, and is coordinating the girls team now. The girls team consists of many new players, as there was a senior heavy team last season. May explains his overall thoughts on the team’s performance against the Mustangs.
“Really proud of the team. Proud of their effort, focus, enthusiasm and engagement. I felt we played with a lot of personality and were incredibly organized and dominated all phases of the game,” May said. “I cannot think of a better game one performance at Westside since I’ve been involved, it’s a shame that the result went the way it did because I cannot ask much more from the players in terms of what they gave for the team. A great platform to build on this year.”
There are many matches to come and junior Luci Proctor, who has been playing for the Westside since her freshman year, shared how she thinks the team did despite the loss.
“I think the team did well at encouraging each other and lifting each other up while also providing pointers and advice for the younger players on the team who have never played a varsity game before,” Proctor said. “I think we also did really well at creating opportunities to score and building and connecting as a team, especially for our first time playing together. I am super proud of the way we played and worked despite the outcome.”
On the pitch was also junior Madison Kully who has also been playing for Westside since her freshman year. She also explained how she thinks the team did despite the loss.
“Overall as a team we did a great job connecting passes,” Kully said. “And we were very well organized.”
Coach May had to make the decision on which girls were going to play varsity as there were many open spots compared to previous seasons. The team consists of many talented players who play soccer year round. He discusses which girls had standout performances during the match.
“I want to shout out that we had seven players playing their first varsity minutes, and our opponent had far more returning players and I felt we looked mature and in control and did not look like a young inexperienced team,” May said. “Specifically I will shout out Kenzi Perez who as a freshman hardly put a foot wrong playing in multiple positions and playing the entirety of the game.”
While no team wants to lose, it can make the team more motivated to work harder. There is a lot of time for the team to keep progressing and find rhythm as the season just started. Proctor shared how she plans to bounce back after this match.
“As a team, we plan to work hard these next two days of training to be even more prepared than we were on Tuesday. We plan to work on finishing our chances and putting the ball in the back of the net so that we can score multiple goals against a high quality opponent on Saturday,” Proctor said. “We are all motivated after the previous game because of the way we played, yet we are ready for a win because of the result we got even after playing good soccer. The team is ready to bounce back and compete come Saturday.”
Kully is a great contributor on the field and also explained how she plans to bounce back after this match.
“Throughout the week we are going to work on finishing in the box and set pieces,” Kully said.
The game was 0-0 up until the last seconds of the game, where fatigue was at a high and the Mustangs scored the winning goal. Having a loss in the final seconds can be devastating and hurt more, but can also be more of a learning point. May shares how he processes a loss that happens in the final seconds.
“We will try to not think about the result, and focus on all the positive things we did, while understanding there are many areas we can improve,” May said. “Unfortunately a moment that did not go in our favor affected the result in a negative way, and we have to accept that and move on.”
Going into a match for many sports, not only soccer, also comes with making a strategy to try and use skills in your favor to achieve the win. Not always do things go the way planned, so Proctor expresses if the strategy changed as the match went on.
“The team’s strategy didn’t change as the game went on, but the game did change after we all started to get tired. In those moments, the team really just worked on supporting each other and connecting passes in order to save the legs for the minutes that we had left,” Proctor said. “Overall, the strategy stayed consistent the whole game because of the quality soccer we played throughout the match.”
She also explained what she took away from the match as it was a learning point not only for her but her other teammates as well.
“Something that I took away from this match was to fight until it’s over and even if the outcome wasn’t the best, it’s about the way you played as a team,” Proctor said. “This helped because now we are feeling proud of our performance and we are ready to keep working to put the same soccer and maybe something even better on the field to get the outcomes we all want for our season.”
Kully also shares her opinion on the team’s strategy as the match progressed.
“As the game went on our passing got much better,” Kully said, “We did a much better job on seeing the field and finding the open spaces playing through the middle.”
Throughout the season it is a journey with the team with continuing to work with each other they can develop their game to which by the end, can help them play successfully in the big tournaments at the end of the season. May explains how he thinks the team can learn moving forward and what is going to be the focus in practice leading up to the next match.
“The team can learn that games are decided in moments,” May said. “This week we will focus on being better in both boxes as we created enough chances to win the game and didn’t take any of them, and we conceded a goal after only conceding very few chances.”
The Warriors will face Lincoln East on Saturday morning.
