Despite ‘rusty’ performance, Lady Yellowjackets’ soccer dominates Pacific High School, 4-1
Yellowjackets win second straight to begin 2021-2022 season
Freshman varsity player, Tiffany Abril, has the goal in sight during the first half of the Yellowjackets victory over Pacific High, 4-1.
Colton, CA—With a week’s vacation between their first victory of the season over Rubidoux and yesterday’s match against Pacific High, the Lady Yellowjackets looked slightly out of focus, but still sent the Pirates home with a loss, defeating them 4-1.
“Rusty,” head coach Manny Flores said about his team’s performance after the game. “We had a lot of rust. We were off for five days for Thanksgiving break. We weren’t playing as a team. We played very inconsistent today. As you can see, it takes time.”
While the team certainly missed a lot of opportunities to break the game wide open, they still put together a dominant performance. For the game, they took 17 shots on goal, holding Pacific to one—a deflected kick that managed to find the back of the Yellowjackets’ net after the game was well in hand.
From the opening kick, the Yellowjackets took control of the midfield, keeping the ball out of their territory with great services and crosses. Sophomore forward Anna Bailey scored early in the first half, then followed that a few minutes later with an assist to sophomore Melanie Bravo for a well-executed header into the net.
After halftime, up 2-0, Colton wasn’t finished. Celebrating her 16th birthday, junior Paola Soto extended the Yellowjacket lead with a dynamic curving corner kick.
“I feel we’re bonding more as a team,” Soto said, more excited to talk about her teammates than herself after the game. “We’re actually connecting now that we’re playing more together.”
Soto also added an assist to her game tally when she placed a perfect cross for senior Aracely Reyes to kick past the overworked Pirates’ goalie.
The only score for Pacific came on a late second half accident that caught Yellowjackets’ goalie Zamantha Moctezuma off guard. Pacific pushed up field and a deflected pass went off one of their players and past Moctezuma before rolling slowly into the goal.
While a bit embarrassed, Moctezuma said about the goal, “It was an accident. It won’t happen again.”
Coach Flores agrees. On Thursday, the Yellowjackets travel to Rancho Mirage to face the 2-3 Rams.
“They will be more game ready,” Flores said. “We’ll have time to work on things now. Back to the drawing board, and we’ll be back at it on Thursday.”
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