Frisky Jaguars Pounce the Patchless Buccaneers
Senior goalkeeper Gabriella "Gabby" Ruiz scoops up another Balboa attempt on goal. With minutes to go in the game, Ruiz made several great saves to secure the victory and preserve her first shut-out of her two-year-career.
The 2011 Lady Jaguars are coming together. Stringing passes and taking shots on goal. But most impressive was witnessing the high pressure defense by the whole team.
The score was 0-0 at half-time for the second time during their San Francisco CIF AAA season. The girls were excited but nervous as well. I am sure they remembered a previous game against O’Connell (we lost 2-0). I stressed to them that the first ten minutes would set the tone of the game. We needed a goal and we needed to pressure Balboa.
June Jordan Girls Soccer vs Balboa – Images by Jason Steinberg
The girls delivered. Shot after shot, we peppered freshman goalkeeper Amanda Armas. Not that the shots were so tough to save, but she was always in the correct position and came out with unflinching determination to stop the Jaguars advance on goal. Eventually, during one of the several barrages of shots on goal, Jocelyn Ochoa struck a well place low driving shot that ended up in the back of the net!
1-0. We had the lead. A lead we would take for the remaining 35 minutes of the game to win. But we sustained an ankle injury and thus we played with only 10 players. Because of various knee injuries and academic ailments June Jordan’s soccer team is struggling. We started the game with 10 players, eventually the 11th arrived after finishing a school project, and then of course played the last 30 minutes with 10 players.
This game demonstrated lots of heart. Heart I wasn’t sure the girls had in them after taking Spring Break off from soccer and warming-up slowly and casually. Maybe that’s what was needed…a break.
Whatever it was or is…I hope we can keep it going and continue building this program. It wasn’t so much the victory but the heart and determination against a team that has three times as many wins as us…before the final whistle. Now, we have two victories and I think the team is hungry for more!
If you would like to see more game action imagery please click this link to view images I captured sitting on the sideline in the coach’s box.