Written by: Jenna Webster

Photos by: Caitlin Connell

“If we can pick up from where we left last year, I think we can be very successful,” junior and girls soccer team captain Allie Coyne said at the beginning of the season about the possibility of winning back to back Central Coast Section (CCS) championships.

While the Mountain View girls soccer team lost Friday night to Woodside High School 1-0, they closed their season with a record of 19-1-2 overall and 10-0-2 in league play, a first place finish in the De Anza League, and a second place finish in the open division of the CCS playoffs. The team scored 63 goals and only allowed 5 goals against them. This makes the girls soccer team ranked 5th in California and 20th nationally.

“I think that this season was still a success, going undefeated until that last game,” Coyne said. “There was a ton of experience up and down the lineup and it was easy to pick up where we had left off last season chemistry-wise.”

To make it to the championship game, MVHS had defeated St. Francis High School in the quarterfinals 1-0 on Feb. 27 and Aptos High School in the semifinals 2-0 on March 2.

At the CCS finals on March 4, MVHS fought hard to keep the score 0-0 through the first half. Both MVHS and Woodside switched back and forth between offense and defense and both teams’ goalies had several diving saves. The last three minutes of the first half and into the second half Woodside began to push harder offensively and they scored 20 minutes into the second half. MVHS defender, Kasey Cruz, and Woodside player, Kayla Hart, were fighting for the ball and slipped on the wet grass outside of the goal box. Hart was able to get to the ball first and went 1 v 1 against goalie, Natalie Brehaut. Even though Brehaut dove to the ground, Hart was able to score in the lower right hand corner making the score 1-0. In the last part of the game MVHS had several goal scoring opportunities and kept the game on their offensive side with many corner kicks. The entire team pushed hard with Brehaut participating in the offense on the corner kicks, but the girls were not able to tie the game up.

Right forward, Natasha Harris, had torn her ACL in the semifinals match two nights before. Harris was one of the team’s leading scorers with 12 goals.

“I think we were feeling the lack of Natasha’s presence on the right side at times, but we were still able to create a decent number of good chances whether they were corners, free kicks, etc… it was just a bummer that none of those chances found the back of the net,” Coyne said.

MVHS has six graduating seniors but the other 17 players will have another chance to make it to the CCS finals in the 2016-2017 season.

“I think we’re all excited for next year what with this one ending on a bit of a sour note, but we hope to put the same amount of work in, if not more, next season in attempts to make it back to a CCS final,” Coyne said. “We can’t wait to hit the ground running next November.