By Monica Delgado ’18 and Austin Molina ’18
When and where did the event take place?
The Girls Varsity Soccer Team took on Speer Academy’s Varsity team on a windy Thursday night, March 22nd. The stands were full with a mixture of Pritzker, Speer, and other Noble fans. Although Speer had home court advantage and the night was terrifically cold, most of the cheers coming from the stands were from proud Pritzker parents and students.
First Half
The Lady Jaguars made an astonishing early start with Citlaly Leyva, freshman, scoring three minutes into the game. Then, at minute 20 Destiny Jimenez, senior, scored giving Pritzker a 2-0 lead against Speer. After that, Speer got a full head of steam and took the ball down the field but was stopped by Pritzker’s defence and had the ball once again. Pritzker after that had control of the ball and kept the ball on speer side for majority of the game. Then Keyla Romero, junior, scored a goal giving Pritzker the insurance points against Speer making it 3-0. Then, yet again Speer starts with a full head of steam but was stopped by the lady Jaguars defence. Then taking it back and forth up and down the field, Pritzker finally breaks free and Joanna Bahena, freshman, giving the Lady Jaguars an even bigger lead making it 4-0 at the end of the first half. Pritzker had a nice lead at the end of the first plan while Speer had some catching up to do. The Lady Jaguars stuck out in the cold while Speer had the opportunity to go inside the school building during the half. Then finally coming back out it seemed as if the speer girls had energy.
Second Half
Speer had a great start to the second half while being very aggressive, but so was Pritzker stopping Speer in there tracks quickly gaining control of the ball. Then, Pritzker’s aggressive offence took action, constantly attacking and shooting at the goal. Speer’s goalie put up an amazing fight blocking and diving to prevent a goal one finally went through. Leyva scoring her second goal of the game. Shortly after, with other rounds of shots at Speer’s goal another shot from Romero finds the back of the net giving the jaguars a 6-0 lead against Speer. After that, Speer’s defense stepped up a notch and held Pritzker from another goal. With another back and forth between the teams some of the Lady Jaguars started to cramp up, first Romero got a cramp and had to get pulled out aside to get a stretch. Then shortly, after Bahena got a cramp and the game was stopped to get her some water and help. While she was being stretched, some other girls decided to take that time to also stretch before the game continued. When everyone was ready to continue, the two teams clashed again. Speer struggled to attempt to score for the first time of the night while Pritzker focused on not allowing them to get any point on the board and trying their hardest to score yet another goal. With both teams fought until the end, Pritzker was able to get one more goal. America Calvario, freshman, got in one last goal for Pritzker giving them the lead and final score of 7-0. After that, Pritzker held Speer to zero goals throughout the whole game., and Pritzker winning with the final score 7-0!
What the team believes they could have done better?
Overall, the team as whole believes they could have done a better job with their team communication. Romero, stated “I think that as a team we played well, but if we communicated a little better we could have done a much better job.” Jacqueline Puente, senior, also agreed with Romero’s point of view upon their team’s communication, “As a team we could have worked a little better to communicate because sometimes two of our players would go for the ball at the same time.” Aside of the team bettering their communication skills, Romero believes she can contribute onto a more positive movement for the team by improving her “stamina and actually staying in my position”.
Shout-Outs?
All of the players in which we spoke with emphasized how great they believed they played as a whole, and how playing alongside each other made them succeed. Romero could not have emphasize enough how proud she was of the team, “one thing I can take away from this game is that we are a great team… if we work as a team, we will get further together… this game showed me that my team is capable of doing great things.” Liliana Ramirez, senior, wanted to shoutout Joana, freshman, for “always fighting for the ball and never giving up”. Aside of Romero scoring two goals, Puente wanted to give her a shout out for “being a good overall team leader.”
Overall, the Lady Jaguars did a great job with taking a 7-0 lead against one of their biggest rivals, as Romero “we did not except to beat a great team like ITW by 7.”
