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THEPRESS.NET
JANUARY 15, 2010
SPORTS
Freedom girls soccer ties Heritage by Dave Roberts Staff Writer Freedom’s girls soccer team dropped its first game of the season last week against Antioch, but bounced back in a come-from-behind tie with Heritage in its next contest. Antioch scored first in the Panthers’ 2-1 victory on a goal by Jessica Huerta 12 minutes in, which Freedom’s Catherine Carter answered seven minutes later. The tie was broken with five minutes left in the half, again by Huerta. Panther goalkeeper Melissa Holmes made eight saves. Falcon goalkeeper Jessica Deno, who has recovered from a knee injury that kept her out of the Tri-Valley Tournament, saved five shots. “Our girls played in the second half a little bit better than we did in the first half,” said Freedom Coach Marc Crockett. “We were a little bit flat. Antioch is a good, strong team. We had some strong play by our midfielders, but some break-
Freedom’s Angel Gosse, left, and Antioch’s Alica Palma put their best foot forward in a match last week won by Antioch 2-1.
Photo by Richard Wisdom
downs in our defense.” The Falcons played stronger two days later in a 1-1 tie with Heritage. Patriot midfielder Mikayla Griggs scored the lone Heritage goal with an assist from Janelle Triplett 10 minutes into the contest. The
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teams then battled for 40 more minutes before the Falcons’ Kiki Simmons scored on an assist from Carter. Deno recorded six saves while Patriot Katie Barsanti saved five shots. “Heritage scored first and my girls battled back and played hard the whole game,” said Crockett. “Our keeper had a decent game and our defensive line, anchored by Emily Yonemoto, allowed only a few shots on goal. Our girls were working hard in the middle. Catherine Carter has been helpful in our attack along with Julie Lopez. We thought we were going to get a couple of other goals; we had opportunities but it didn’t work out for us.” The tie gave Heritage and Freedom identical 2-1-2 league records. Heritage is 6-4-3 overall and Freedom is 7-1-5. The Falcons will need to go 7-2-0 in remaining league play to match last year’s record, in which they finished second, posting a 9-42 league record (13-7-4 overall). “We are pretty happy with the results” so far,” said Crockett. “It would be nice to have a few more wins. We have been
staying in all of our games. Considering we are a fairly young team – we have 10 sophomores on our team, only three seniors and two juniors – we are doing quite well for a young team. We are just trying to build every week one game at a time. “Emily Yonemoto in the back line gives us a lot of leadership defensively. Julie Lopez gives us leadership in midfielders as well as Angel Gosse. Kiki (a sophomore) has been our leading scorer throughout the season so far. She has 10 goals, 37 shots and 30 assists. The scoring has been from our sophomores – I think all of our goals are from our sophomores and freshmen. Two seniors play in the back line and the other is a backup goalkeeper.” Crockett, who has been coaching at Freedom for 10 years, has noticed more players coming to high school better prepared after having played for years in local youth soccer leagues. But despite the surging popularity of soccer as a participant sport, it hasn’t grown much as a spectator sport – the metallic stands are cold and mostly empty. “It’s pretty much the parents that show up,” he said. “Popularity hasn’t grown a great deal as far as high school soccer. It’s cold out there and they would rather see basketball games in a warm gym. But in the area, soccer programs are growing and kids are playing, so it’s improving.” As for the rest of this season, Crockett would like to get past the first round of the playoffs, bettering his team of two years ago. “Hopefully we can all stay healthy,” he said. “If we keep building on our program we may be able to make the playoffs for the second time in Freedom’s history and do better than one game and out.” To comment, visit www.thepress.net.