The girls’ soccer team was handed a pair of losses against Oakdale and Quince Orchard on Saturday and Monday respectively. With the two losses, the team is now 1-2 to start the season following their opening 6-0 win against Poolesville.
Against Oakdale on Saturday, in their first road game of the season, the team had several players who were out due to illness. But for the most part both teams had their share of chances. Junior attacker Haley Prindle found the back of the net, scoring her second goal of the season.
Oakdale scored a buzzer-beater goal at the end of the first half, with only two seconds remaining. The Cats couldn’t regain the momentum, as Oakdale scored another goal, winning the game 2-1.
“Oakdale is a really good team, they really pressure you with their size and physicality,” head coach Neil Gottlieb said. “If you don’t match up well with their physicality, it becomes a really tough game. It was a tough match, at Oakdale, but we played hard.”
Against QO on Monday, the first half was relatively even, despite the Cougars having more opportunities on goal. Similar to the Oakdale game, a goal with two seconds left in the first half put the Cats down 1-0.
The second half remained in QO’s favor, as they were playing with a lead to protect. QO did a good job protecting the ball in the midfield, keeping the WJ attack at bay. QO tallied on two more goals, one being a header off of a corner kick, making the final score 3-0.
“(The QO game) was not our best game, we were definitely lacking communication and teamwork,” senior defender Hannah Schmidt said. “But I think we worked hard, and they were a good team, they just played around us. I think we’ll take the mistakes, we’ll take them into the next game and in the future.”
With the two losses in the rearview mirror, the team hopes they can learn from the two losses and start getting back into the win column.
“I think we’re going to be very supportive of one another, be very optimistic, and review the things we could do better on,” Prindle said. “And I think if we continue to work through all of the little mistakes that we made, we can definitely make a lot of improvements.”
The Wildcats will take the field again Wednesday, at home against Gaithersburg (2-1).
