Sneha Gulrajani
Despite being eliminated by the Cerritos Falcons, the women’s soccer season turned out to be one to remember. The Brahmas overall finished 19-4-3 and won their forth consecutive conference title with a conference record of 11-1-2. “Winning our conference four years in a row and six out of eight it was awesome, I think this was the hardest time winning it because expectations are always high at Pierce, to be able to win it on the last day was awesome”, said Head Coach, Adolfo Perez. They started out strong, winning the first game against West Los Angeles with a score of 10-0. Seven of the players scored, including Stephanie Cubias with goals. This was just the beginning of Cubias contribution for the year, she finished the year by leading the team with 15 goals and eight assists. “Overall it was amazing, I got to meet the best 20 girls I’ve ever met in my life…, It was an ideal team for me”, said Cubias. After a strong start, they suffered an embarrassing 4-1 lose to Victor Valley in the Victor Valley tournament. Then in their very next game, two days later, they were shutout to Moorpark losing 2-0. After their loses, then immediately they made a turn around and won 11-0-2 in their next 13 games. Every single one of their wins turned out to be shutouts, due to the efforts of a freshman goal keeper, Betty Ramirez. Ramirez had a great season overall, the Brahmas had 18 shutouts with her in between the post. She only allowed 18 goals, 98 saves and when the Brahmas season ended, she lead the state in minutes played with 2,210. “I focus on trying to get a shutout in every game and have no goals against me and if I ever make a mistake on the field I forget about it and keep playing my game”, said Ramirez. The last few games of the season, they ran into trouble again. The Brahmas could manage only a scoreless tie against Los Angeles Mission and then lost to conference rivals Bakersfield 2-1, making their last two games of the regular season must win games. The Brahmas rose to the challenge and beat Glendale 3-0 and Canyons 2-0, clinching them their fourth consecutive title. “Tell them what to expect from Pierce, that there is a lot of expectations and just motivate them to try to win and keep the tradition here at Pierce”, said Perez when expressing about how to motivate his players before every game. The Brahmas entered the playoffs with high hopes and started off strong with a thrilling come-from-behind overtime victory over Moorpark College. “I knew we could do it, it was just the matter of doing it”, said Perez, following the game. The Brahmas faced a daunting task, their next opponent was the defending state champions, the Cerritos Falcons. Their record was 18-0-4, they lead the state in scoring and showed no sign of any sufferings. The game played out exactly what everyone thought, the Falcons shutout the Brahmas with the final score 3-0. “That’s the best team, if they don’t win the state championship, I will be shocked”, said Perez.
The Falcons would go on to beat Santa Rosa 4-2 in the championship game to take their second consecutive state championship. The players can look at this year as a successful one and look forward to another playoff run next year, while the Brahmas will be losing some of their key sophomores including forward Yasmine Yahoum, who was second on the team with 12 goals. “(I am going to focus on) working hard so that next year maybe we’ll go far and win conference again and maybe go on and past second round and go for a state championship”, said Ramirez.
Women’s soccer players warm up before practice. Nov. 21. ()