By Ryan Libby |Staff Writer|
If you walked into the woman’s soccer team practice you wouldn’t be able to know that they just lost three straight games and missed the playoffs.
Instead, you would hear laughter and chatter about the recent mid-terms and be able to see the smiles spread across their faces.
The mood was light and relaxed. It made me wonder if the stressful week of needing to win two games against opponents like Chico State and Cal State Stanislaus had weighed them down.
It might have, but it also may have been inexperience.
“I thought the game was even,” said Coach Travis Clarke when talking about the team’s loss to Chico on Oct. 19.
“Kind of chalk that one [game] up as not [being] experienced enough to win that game.”
Despite the losses, with 19 freshman on a roster of 36, the future looks bright for the Lady Coyotes.
The team had two games over the weekend and although the results didn’t matter as far as playoff rankings, it still made a difference to the team’s six seniors.
“I think it’s just they really want to go out on a positive note right now,” Clarke said last Wednesday.
“I think it’s important for [the seniors] to end above .500. I think it’s important for them to beat teams that they should beat. I think it’s important for them to have some success at the end of the year and I think they realize it.”
The six seniors who have played their last season as a Coyote are: Priscilla Collings, Jani-Carmona-Urbano, Amanda Villavicencio, Allison Pena, Priscilla Gomez and Ashley Wolf.
Senior Collings joined the Coyote soccer team after she finished her eligibility with the volleyball team last year and has definitely provided this team with a solid performance.
Villavicencio, Gomez, Pena and Wolf have played for the Coyotes for the full four years and Carmona-Urbano has played for three years with one year played at Hawii-Hilo.
Though the time for these seniors has flown by, some of them are not ready to leave their cleats and jerseys behind.
Carmona-Urbano somewhat looked forward to the season’s end. When speaking to her it seemed as if the practices and time spent on the field were taking away from time with her daughter.
That can be understood because athletics does have an effect on a family’s whereabouts, but in the end she will miss her teammates.
“I wish I had more years with them. I love all of them,” Carmona-Urbano said to Coyote Chronicle’s Lindsey Allen last week.
The women’s soccer season is now over.
Yes, they may not have made the playoffs, but the experience from this season will live on.
“Being in the playoff hunt all the way through the end [of the season] is really good experience for them,” Clarke said.
With nearly the entire team returning next year, they can use their defeats and their experience as motivation to succeed and finish what they started this season.