Dougherty Valley Women’s Varsity Soccer lost a home game against Monte Vista Women’s Varsity Soccer Team 5-0 on Feb. 1 and lost their last home game against Dublin High Women’s Varsity soccer Team 3-0 on Feb. 8, despite their excellent offensive and defensive plays.

One of the major turning points in this game was when DV goalkeeper Kaitlyn Glavee injured herself while attempting and succeeding in saving a goal during the first half. She couldn’t play for the rest of the game and was replaced by sophomore Sarah Russell, who missed two shots but managed to save more than 10 goals.

MVHS scored four goals in just the first half. Two of these goals were scored by senior, Sarah Arnaudon and the other two were scored by freshman Kylie Hummel and junior Rebecca Mccourt.

“The biggest factor was that we lost our starting and only goalkeeper. Another factor was that we started the game with only 13 field players available on the bench and one of our team captains became very ill, forcing me to use my last remaining sub. That whole half and the rest of the game the girls played with no sub and a field player in goal,” Coach Siu said.

The DV varsity girls defended extremely well in the second half. However, the other team managed to scored another point because of a self-goal by DV senior Cammy Okmin.

“(It was very) unlucky and undeserving-we were playing a really clean half of soccer in that half and was just unfortunate, but so is soccer and life. (It was a) good learning moment for the team,” Coach Siu said.

DV varsity girls gave it their best when they played their last game against Dublin High. Their goalkeeper Kaitlyn Glavee was back in the game.

Both teams failed to score a goal in the first half because both teams put up their strongest offense and defense. Another positive factor was both team’s communication and teamwork, which helped them play strong. Many attempts were made by the teams to score, but both the teams’ goalkeepers didn’t miss saving a single shot.

There were two handballs, one from each teams. Midfielder and defender Mikayla Win made the direct free kick for the DV team, however her shot was blocked by the Dubin goalkeeper Alexis Cardenas. The Dublin direct free kick was also blocked by the DV goalkeeper Kaitlyn Glavee.  

Things got tensed for Wildcats in the second half. Three Dougherty Valley athletes injured themselves throughout the game, but continued to play after some time. Dublin scored in the last 30 minutes. Two by junior Bekah Valdez and the last goal by senior Vanessa Legins.

“We felt distressed and unorganized, it became harder to keep our shape as a team and I felt that we became a lot more frustrated and rushed,” Mikayla Win said.

Despite the circumstances, Wildcats  didn’t give up and they consistently attempted to score goals, as did Gaels. Both the teams started using different tactics and techniques – like DV senior and captain Charley Okmin who repeatedly used a Cruyff turn in order to confuse the players and to keep the ball, in hopes of scoring more goals. However, this resulted in failure, as  their shots were saved by the goalkeeper and there was no time left, resulting in a loss to Dublin High 3-0.

Dougherty Valley Women’s Varsity Soccer season has now ended. The team has won two games, lost fourteen games and has had one draw.

““The team this year faced a lot of adversity but, in the end we never gave up on one another and we grew very close” Charley Okmin said.