On March 1, the Bonita Vista High (BVH) girls’ lacrosse team faced off against San Ysidro High (SYH) Cougars for their first game of the season. Despite BVH’s efforts and preparation leading up to the game, the Lady Barons suffered a heartbreaking defeat against the Cougars with a final score of 4-6. Despite the loss, Head Coach Ahmad Rice expresses that this is only the beginning, allowing for the team to grow.
“We are not done yet, we have a lot more work to do. Now that we got our first game under our belt, we should definitely have a goal to shoot towards for next practice,” Rice said.
The game commenced with lots of enthusiasm and support from the crowd of both teams as SYH gained initial possession of the ball. After some missed opportunities from both teams, SYH scores the first point of the game, setting the score at 0-1. Assistant Coach Angelina Ortega expressed that BVH lacked good communication throughout the first quarter, which contributed to the team’s vulnerable start.
“Communication can really define a game, especially when we play teams with all of the aggression. The communication should be, playing-wise, better because this way, everybody knows where they’re going to be, and everybody has a certain person to defend,” Ortega said.
The Cougars would be relentless in their prowl, shortly scoring a second point thereafter. However, the Lady Barons fight back as senior midfielder and attacker Francine Imperial (12) manages to break through SYH’s defense and successfully lobs a shot into the goal, scoring a point for BVH.
As the quarter progressed, the teams traded possession of the ball and took shots at each other’s goals, with SYH scoring one more point and placing the first quarter’s score at 1-3. Imperial expresses contentedness with the outcome of the game, but also explains that she has a lot more to work on as a result.
“I think [the game] went okay, I could have been more confident in myself. I could have passed the ball a lot more but overall, I played good,” Imperial said. “It felt really good [to score that first goal], especially since it’s my first game of senior year and because it was the first goal of the game.”
The second quarter starts slowly, no goals are scored by either team until the end of the quarter. SYH manages to score another goal for their team, ending the quarter with a score of 1-4. Rice explains that it was difficult to gain any sort of traction during the game, which he believes was one of the contributing factors that led to BVH’s loss.
“It was more or less sporadic moments versus consistent moments. We didn’t get to run and we didn’t gain momentum, which is what we needed,” Rice said.
In the third quarter, BVH manages to pick up the momentum that they were missing. After some fighting, captain, midfielder, attacker and junior Renata Herbst scores a goal for BVH. Building off of Herbst’s momentum, goalie and sophomore Jannah Abas (30) shields the Lady Barons from the Cougars’ attack, blocking a shot and maintaining the 2-4 score going into the last quarter. Herbst explains how BVH managed to up their game during the second half.
“In the second half, we did the best because we picked it up. We were more aggressive on defense, we swung the ball around more, and we figured out how to better play to their offense,” Herbst said.
The fourth quarter demonstrated even better results for BVH, with attacker and junior Jasmine Vardeleon (23) scoring two more points for BVH. Vardeleon also believes that her team’s performance improved in the second half, explaining that her goals allowed her team to pick up momentum.
“It feels good [to score]. It really helps get the momentum up with my team and it was a great pickup after how we were doing in the first half,” Vardeleon said.
However, despite BVH’s best efforts and the support from the crowd, the team would still suffer a heartbreaking defeat against SYH with a final score of 4-6. BVH fought until the bitter end, and Rice explains that the loss serves as an opportunity for growth for the team rather than for sulking. He further explains that their performance so far has been a lot better than last year.
“I believe that this is light-years different from how they did last year. I think that this is a much better team. They’ve all put together a lot more confidence than necessary. Just a little more detail and attention, I think right now that is going to make the difference in our games,” Rice said.
