Lady Jags take home 7-0 win in home opener
The Lady Jaguars faced the Oglethorpe County Patriots on Feb. 12 at Waters-Wilkins Stadium. The Lady Jags shut out the Patriots 7-0 with senior striker and forward Zulma Valdivieso-Gutierrez scoring six goals and sophomore forward Kendra Hernandez-Vilches scoring one goal.
The win brought the Lady Jags’ record up to 2-1, coming back from a tough 10-0 loss against West Forsyth last week. Following that loss, the team has been conducting shooting drills to score more goals. Assistant varsity coach Hannah Doolittle noticed the players’ effort in practice positively translated into the next game.
“I think that (what we’ve been working on) showed its payoff in two left footed goals from girls who are not left footed. They took the shot and they had confidence, and we ended up scoring both times on left foot,” Doolittle said.
Doolittle believes that the team could have played better, but she also recognizes it’s early in the season and her standards can be high.
“Although we won by a large margin, I did share with the girls that we didn’t play quite as well as I would have hoped.Everyone’s still getting their legs back under them and getting back into the swing of things, but we definitely could have possessed against that team a lot better than we did,” Doolittle said.
“I think this is the most solid varsity girls team that this school has seen in many years, even better than last year’s team. Last year was our first time in over 20 years having a winning season, and so this year I expect our performance to be even stronger. I am excited because I think it’s gonna be a really good season,”
Valdivieso-Gutierrez recognizes the effort the team put into the win and other positive improvements including goal kicks, switching and more hustle.
“There’s a lot of things that we have to work on, but there was improvement too, like a lot of switching on the field which we haven’t really done in the past games. I think it was a good game where everybody played hard. I’m excited to get more wins, try to get more goals
and just have a winning season,” Valdivieso-Gutierrez said.
Although the team got the win, freshman center back Neko Vick also wants to seek improvement.
“We just needed to connect more passes and finish. Sometimes it was like we were just kicking the ball and we needed to pass the ball. But I’ve also been seeing good stuff from practice in the game, like one-two (plays). I think for the most part our team connection has been good, and it’s getting better as we continue the season as well,” Vick said.
Looking forward, Doolittle hopes and predicts this team will be highly successful compared to other teams.
“I think this is the most solid varsity girls team that this school has seen in many years, even better than last year’s team. Last year was our first time in over 20 years having a winning season, and so this year I expect our performance to be even stronger. I am excited because I think it’s gonna be a really good season,” Doolittle said.
