The Rival Game

Yesterday Lady Demons Soccer hosted the Lady Spartins Soccer.  BV came into the game expecting it to be a fairly easy win, but they were mistaken.   In the first half Caili C. scored the first goal, and then April Taft scored the second from a corner kick.  By the end of the first half we were feeling very secure in winning the game.  We went out and lined up for the second half.  Salida got the ball and dribbled down to our end of the field.  Erica Baker had the ball inside the 6 and went to cross it to Hannah D, but her cross went the wrong way and ended up in the goal. Salida had just scored and they were thrilled.  The Lady Demons were shocked to say the least.   We couldn’t let them score again.  About 7ish minutes later Hannah D. got the ball and dribbled through the defense, shot and to BVHS’ horror, scored. We were tied 2-2.  BVHS now had to dig deep and fight hard to win this game.  There was no way we were going to loose to Salida, we couldn’t, we would be so dead if we did.  Then with 8 minutes to go in the game Hannah D. scored, again.  BVHS was loosing to Salida, and it was horrifying and stressful.  How could this be happening?  We clearly were the better team, but we weren’t playing like it.  You could tell that at that point when the score was 2-3 that Salida wanted to win the game more than we did.  3 minutes later we heard the ref say that there was 5 minutes and counting, and it looked as if the game was over.  How could we honestly come back and win the game with the way we were playing?  We were playing like crap!  Then we got a free kick right over the half line.  Cody Lewis took the free kick and sent it to the left side of the goal, Salida hit the ball over the end line, corner kick.  Cody set the ball on the line, raised her hand and sent the ball into the 18.   There was a jumble with the ball and then it crossed the end line inside the net.  We had just tied the game!  3-3 with 3ish minutes to go! We couldn’t let Salida get close to the goal, at all. We knew that we might have to go into over time and then into sudden death to win this game, and if that was the case we were prepared to.  Then in the 2 minutes Bailey M. got the ball and crossed it to Keely B. who was making a run to the goal.  Keely collected the ball with a defender right on her back.  She pushed towards the goal, the keeper came out, and Keely chipped the ball over the keeper.  We were back in front with who knows how much time left in the game.  Salida set the ball on the half line and kicked off, and then the ref blew his whistle.  The game was over, we had just come from behind and won the game in the last 5 minutes.  We proved that we truely were the best team in the county.  After the game Coach said that this game would be the game that we would remember for the rest of our lives, and I agree.  Even writing about it makes my stomach churn.  Yesterday we, the Lady Demons, fought hard and recieved a well earned W.  Good job ladies, now lets kick some butt today.

BV vs St. Mary’s

On Tuesday April 2nd the Lady Demons hosted one of the best teams in the state, St. Mary’s. Last year St. Mary’s beat BV 8-0. The keeper Jalyn had 33 saves in that game. At the end of a slaughtering the Lady Pirates’ coach gave Jalyn a rose, and then their team invited the Lady Demons to the center circle to pray. That game was a very painful experience for BV and this year we were determinded not to be slaughtered again. We came into the game with our heads high and ready to play a good game. The game started and possesion of the ball was about equal with both teams for about the first 10ish minutes. Then with a fumbling ball in the box Jess Lewis passed it to Keely Blake who took a touch and shot. We, the Lady Demons were actually beating St. Mary’s in the first 15 minutes of the game! At that moment St. Mary’s realized that they weren’t going to be able to kill us as easily as they did last year. Then the ball was bouncing around in the Demons box and Jenny Nagi hit the ball into the goal. It was a lucky shot. We were now tied 1-1.  By the end of he first half St. Mary’s had scored again and we were losing 2-1.  In the second half we played well but never scored. They scored 2 more times and by the end of the game they won 4-1.  But we played a good game and did a lot better than last year.

BV vs Rye

Yesterday was our first game of the season. We were driving down the Pueblo to play Rye for a non league game. As we were getting our stuff on on the ride down there I could see the anticipation, and excitement slowly building up inside of everyone on the bus. We had been waiting 3 weeks for this day to come, and it finally had. We were about to play our first game, and a plus to that was that it was 67 degrees and there was grass! Finally Coach started calling players to the front of the bus so that he could tell us where we were going to be playing.

After missing our turn we finally arrived at the field, however we only had 26 minutes to warm up instead of the usual hour of warm up time. The V quickly put down their stuff, threw their hair up into ponytails and were ready for some good short-short-long. We were feeling good and ready for the game to start. We went into 5 vs 2 and started to feel the sweat rolling down our cheeks. It was hot, but it felt good. Then into the classic 1 v 1 to goal. This took some figuring out for the new players but they caught on and were doing great. Then with 5-10 minutes to go we started our 3 v 2 to goal. Finally it was time for the sportsmanship talk, the coin toss, and then kick off.

We put our hands in to hear a couple words of wisdom from Coach, yelled integrity at the top of our lungs and ran out onto the field. The game was about to start and we were all ready for it to. The ref blew his whistle and the game started. We spent the first couple of minutes remembering what it felt like to play on grass, and have lots of room to spread out. In the first 15 or so Tessa crossed the ball in front of the goal, and there was Cally standing right past the keeper anticipating the pass. Cally calmly passed the ball into the back of the net. It was 1-0 and Cally had just scored her first V goal and the first goal for the season!! We felt good and were getting into our groove. We were ready to kick butt.

A few minutes later Jen had the ball in front of the goal and took a shot. It just barely cleared the cross bar, which was a bummer but she didn’t let that bother her, she was on the attack again in no time. Jessie crossed the ball into the box, Cally received it,passed it to Jen, who placed the ball into the bottom corner. 2-0.

In the first half we had more scoring opportunities but they didn’t go in. At one point Rye almost scored on themselves, which resulted in another corner kick for BVHS. Cody set the ball on the corner, gave the signal for the line up to start running and crossed the ball. Jen’s head popped out above everyone else’s, but she just barely missed the ball. There was a scramble to get the ball either into the goal or away from the goal. In the end the ball was passed back to Cerra and we were back on the attack pressuring them inside the 30 yard line. After the 40 minutes of good soccer the buzzer sounded and it was the end of the first half and we were up 2-0.

For the second half we moved some people around and pulled our JV goalie out onto the field and put her into the goal so that April, our other back up goalie, could get some field time. Lu and Cody were on the wings with the hope that they would be able to send good crosses into the 18 for a chance to score.

Again we were pressuring them in their half of the field and were going strong.  Lu had the ball on the right side of the field and looked for someone to cross the ball to inside the 18, saw Jessie and April and hit the ball. Lu’s pass went right to the goalie, who tried to tip the ball over the cross bar but missed. Lu had just scored a beautiful goal into the upper 90! 3-0!

The team was on fire and looking great for only having played on grass 2 times before. Again we were on the attack,Cody got the ball, passed it to Jessie who very confidently put the ball into the back of the net. 4-0 and there was still about 30 minutes of soccer left. Jessie scored with in minutes of Lu’s goal and we knew that there were going to be more goals just by the way we were playing.

Jessie got the ball, dribbled, made a nice move, blew right by the defender, and looked up to see April standing inside the 6. She passed the ball right to April’s feet who inconveniently had her back to the goal, but it was ok. Cody came running in at the top of the 18 and called for the ball, April passed it to her and she shot. The ball hit the under side of the cross bar and went into the goal. It was 5-0, and man did we feel good.

Then throughout the latter half of the second half we started to get a little lazy and sloppy and they almost scored.  Then to add to that the ref started to make some pretty ify calls that probably could have just been left alone.  We came close to scoring a few more times but spent most of our time throwing the ball in and trying not to get attacked by 4 Rye players whenever we got the ball.  Finally the buzzer went off.  We just won our first game 5-0!!!  We felt so good and proud of ourselves.  We deserved to win that game and we did a great job earning that W.

BV vs Salida scrimmage

Yesterday all of the available BV soccer girls all piled onto a bus and headed south towards Salida, our rivalry. We were going down to scrimmage Salida for 2 hours. The first 30  minutes were for varsity, the second 30 minutes for junior varsity and then back to varsity ect.

We all got off the bus but quickly wanted to get back on. Even though the coaching staff had warned that it was going to be cold, we didn’t think it was going to be THAT cold. It was about 20 not including the wind chill. It was not fun. Varsity started to do some what of a warm up with 16 minutes before our kick off.

The first 5 minutes of the game were a bit of a struggle as our bodies began to remember what the first 5 minutes of any game felt like, especially when it was that cold. At one point we had the ball and had pressed it into the box. Hannah passed Cody the ball, Cody flicked the ball over the keepers head and Hannah went for the volley, but was pushed over. There was a serious scramble to either get the ball into the goal or get the ball out. In the end Hannah had pushed the ball into the goal, but Emily the keeper had pushed it out before the ref could get there to see if we had scored. The first 30 minutes were over. It was time to go get on the bus to get warm!!

It was JV’s turn to freeze. The 30 minutes that the JV played seemed to fly right by for the V team and we were back out on the pitch ready to play another 30 minutes of much colder soccer since the temperature had dropped a good 5-10 degrees since we had first played. As we were figuring out positions Hannah asked Cody if she would play sweeper, ” I will play sweeper only if you promise to score.” It was a deal, Cody played sweeper and Hannah was supposed to score.

The kick off whistle blew, and we were on the attack. Both teams had good shots on goal, and then about half way through Tessa shot, but the keeper deflected the ball. However the ball went straight to Hannah’s feet, and the next thing the keeper knew she had been scored on. Hannah kept her end of the deal.

Eventually the final whistle was blew and we were done for the day. We all rushed towards our bags to put on whatever other warm clothing we could find to put on. The V had won one game and tied the other, JV won both of their games. It was a lot of fun to get the chance to actually play on grass, and also to play as well as we did.

Our first official game is down in Rye next Tuesday, we are definitely ready for it!

The Run

Yesterday we had a very different practice than normal. Due to the lack of gym space and no field, the coaching staff had a little surprise for us. We were going for a run, but we didn’t know how far, how long or how, we as a team, were all going to be able to run the same pace. The coaches however had the answers to all of these questions, but wouldn’t give us all of the details. They had us separate into three groups: people who loved to run, people who kind of liked to run ,and then the people who hated to run. They then lined us up into perfectly straight lines within our groups and began to explain what we were doing. Debbie called it the leap frog run, but it is more commonly known as the Indian run. In the Indian run the person in the back of the line sprints to the front to then lead the group, as soon as they get to the front the new last person sprints to the front of the line. Right before we left Debbie mentioned that the easiest way to not focus on the run was to chat, of course not all of us believed her.

Off we went with the faster and medium paced groups out in front. We ran off of school grounds and headed left towards the river. Again we turned left and headed up a hill, all the while Debbie telling us not to look at the hill and that is was nothing to worry about. Before we knew it we were on top of the hill and still going strong. We ran towards Main Street but turned left again before we got there. We ended up on Railroad Street, and had only and few 100 yards to go before we we done… or so we thought. We got back to the gym and found out that varsity was going again. So we all grabbed a quick sip of water and were ready to go again. We did the exact same thing for the second lap. By the end of the second lap we had gone 3 miles. We were all standing around after the second lap when Coach walked up and said, “Ok, we are going again.” We were all shocked that they were making us go again. We had just stood around for 5 minutes and let our muscles cool. Oh well, off we went on our 3rd lap.

The 3rd lap wasn’t that bad, it actually felt really good. And I’m pretty sure that the majority of the team had a good time on the run. So that was our “secret” training plan, running 4.5 miles around town. But hey, it was fun.

The Beginning

soccer 足球
n.

A game played on a rectangular field with net goals at either end in which two teams of 11 players each try to drive a ball into the other’s goal by kicking, heading, or using any part of the body except the arms and hands. The goalie is the only player who may touch or move the ball with the arms or hands.

This definition not only defines a sport, but a life style, and for the girls on the Buena Vista High School soccer team this is our life style.

This blog has been designed to encourage the support of the team from the community, and a chance for the girls to write and express their feelings about the team and the season. So to start things off I’ll give a little update as to what the team has been up to in the last week. Practice started last Tuesday, however there is about a foot or more of snow on the field. So we have been practicing in the basketball gym when the basketball teams are done with practice around 6:30 pm. We were hoping to be able to start outside this week, but yesterday we received another 4 inches of snow.

This Saturday we are scheduled to play Salida and Alamosa in a scrimmage. Salida is currently at a slight advantage because even though they are only 30 miles south they don’t have any snow on the field so they have been able to practice outside on grass. I personally haven’t seen grass since November. However I believe that we are at an advantage as well because when you play indoor soccer the game actually moves at a faster pace. The ball goes faster because it is not on grass, your ball skills improve, your passes become more accurate, and you learn how to work in a small area.

This is only the beginning of what a lot of us believe is going to be a very successful season.