Girls soccer kickstarts the season with a loss to Mira Costa

The Samo girls soccer team competed against Mira Costa for their second home game on Monday Dec. 4. All the girls on the team were aware of their tough opponent and reputation. Although they ended with a score of 1-2, experiencing their first loss in the season, the team took away some new skills.   Melisa Ramirez-Hernandez (’21), a freshman on the team, described her experience and thoughts on the team's loss. “At first, we really connected with the ball as a team. Even though we definitely got better as a team with Mira Costa, it was a shame we didn’t win,” Ramirez-Hernandez said. The team started off strong, but as the game continued the team somehow lost the motivation. Coach Jimmy Chapman contributed his discontent with his team’s play. “I was not happy with our performance. We had a 1-0 lead for half time. We, originally, controlled the tempo of the game, we dominated,” Chapman said.But in the span of only four short minutes, Mira Costa took advantage and scored. “There was no energy or sense of urgency to put this team away. There were two major mental breakdowns that lead to quick goals that we couldn’t recover from. Hopefully we learned from that,” Chapman said.Sierra Merille (’19) agreed with Chapman in how the team should never let their guard down again, even for four minutes. She shared how the team should recover and learn from this experience. “We just had four bad minutes and Mira Costa took advantage of it. What we’re working on right now is connecting as a team and once we develop that, we’ll never be defeated,” Merille said. Chapman concluded with his final thoughts on how a slight mistake cost the team a game.“We gave up those goals and ended up losing the game. But we should’ve won. In my opinion, the better team did not win,” Chapman said.