By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

AURORA, Ore.–  Down 2-0 entering the second half versus North Marion, the Stayton High School Girls Soccer team came out aggressive against the Huskies.

Outside of a 45^th minute Penalty Kick that put North Marion 3-0, the defense led by sophomore goalie Silvia Gomez and sophomore defender Olivia Casarez that kept the pressuring offense of the Lady Huskies off the scoreboard for the remainder of the game with their aggressive play on the pitch.

That strong backline created opportunities for the Eagle offense to push tempo down the field, looking ever-so confident that they can get something going.

Valeria Navarro, who started in the backline before moving up to the front line midway through the first half and Izaland Samuell took the transition from the backline and the midline to the net steadily throughout the latter 40 minutes.

“A lot of it is contributed to the girls learning to take risks,” started Head Coach Lael Anderson. “And risk tend to have great reward in way of goals, but they also require the girls to trust each other once they move out of position in order to cover.”

You could tell that confidence is building with the team as they took shot after shot after shot at North Marion’s goalkeeper; that the girls weren’t shying away from the risk for the possible reward of making the game close.

And when a shot didn’t go their way, they’re finding ways to stop the Huskies offense and try to give themselves another opportunity to go after the goal again.

It’s just all in the development of the team said Anderson.

“I think the girls have been relatively conservative offensively because they want to hold teams to smaller amount of goals on them and we’re getting to the point where the girls can balance their conservative defense to be really aggressive on offense,” said Anderson.  “It’s just going to develop and to recognize the opportunities and just to capitalize on them.

“That we’re still developing the team tactical trust and we’re learning to be patient.  To create quality opportunities to score goals.”

Though the game ended up 3-0 in favor of North, you can see a sense of confidence and trust building from this Eagle team that’s compromised of mostly freshman and sophomores as they close out the first half of Oregon West Conference play Tuesday at home versus Newport.

You could tell, as they walked off the field before the Junior Varsity game, one play could be all the difference for them.

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Photos By Jeremy McDonald