In a game honoring its sophomore players, Women’s Soccer falls short against Bakersfield, 3-2, at home on Oct. 10, giving the Brahmas their first home loss in 5 years.
The soccer field was decorated with balloons as the sophomore players received a bouquet of flowers before the game began with cheers from the home crowd, but those cheers soon came to a halt.
“This was very unexpected, it was a bad time to play our worst game of the year,” said Head Coach Adolfo Perez, “Things catch up to you, there was a lot of fiasco today, sophomore day, balloons and flowers,”
While the first half was plagued by errors and miscues made by Brahma players, Bakersfield capitalized on those mistakes and scored two goals just twelve minutes apart, going into halftime with a commanding 2-0 lead.
“We started off a bit confident, thinking we were going to win this game,” said sophomore Betty Ramirez, “We gave up in the first half.”
Bakersfield struck again in the 29minute of the second half with a goal by Freshman Terryn Soelberg, giving them a 3-0 lead, marking the first time this season that the Brahmas had been down by three goals.
“Bakersfield didn’t beat us today, we beat yourselves,” said sophomore Stephanie Cubias, whose frustration during and after the lose did not give her much to celebrate about, even on sophomore day.“It was all mistakes we should not have done.”
While a potential shut-out still loomed late in the second half, the Brahmas organized a late runbehind two quick goals from freshman Erica Vangsness, the second coming with just six minutes left in the game.
As the crowd got louder, expecting a Pierce comeback with only minutes remaining, the final whistle blew, giving the Brahmas their first conference loss and their second overall loss of the season.
“You want to think its over at 3-0, but I give them a lot of credit, they showed that they have a lot of heart,” said Bakerfield Head Coach Scott Dameron. “I was very impressed with their character as a team.”
Mistakes seemed to be one of the key concerns for Pierce after the game.
“Some of the mistakes we made were very uncharacteristic,” said Perez, “Not to take any credit away from them but all three goals we gave to them, if we make those mistakes in playoffs its over.”
With the playoffs beginning in a few weeks Cubias took the loss as an experience.
“We are going to learn from this and I’m glad this happened now and not in the playoffs,” said Cubias, “We know what we have to do now and know we can be beat, so that puts us on our toes.”
Even after the tough loss Pierce players remained optimistic as they prepare for the playoffs.
“We still have great confidence,” said Ramirez, “we all have hope and believe in ourselves because we are all family.”
The Brahmas, 16-2-1, play one more regular season game at Glendale on Friday before the regional playoffs begin on November 21.
