After a long week of practice with the sprinting, dribbling, corner kicks, and practice goals, it was time to see how much all the hard work, all the effort put into practice would pay off.

Both varsity and sub-varsity teams were excited for the first official district game.

Warm ups are a time to clear your mind of your surroundings, your problems in the outside world, school, and family. It is a time to get mentally and physically prepared. It is a time to believe we are going to dominate the field and not let anyone stop us; it is the to say we are going to win.

Junior Varsity starts to warm up by jogging a lap around the fields and then afterwards stretch and then do what is called the pay-lees series. This set of drills consists of headers, volleys, one touch, two touch, thighs, and chest.

Separating into teams of offense and defense they start to work on their separate drills. Offense works on ball control in a small square. Defense works on clearing the ball and blocking. After five minutes offense works on shooting and defense works on trying to stop offense from scoring in the goal.

Then the game starts, excitement rolls over the stand with cheers from both the home and the opposing team fans.

“We started off slow but then picked up the speed,” sophomore Alison Norwood said.

Alison is number four on the team and plays as the left wing. She nominates Gracie McAndrew as the most valuable player of the game. She was super excited to play but a lot of the excitement went to cheering when they finally made a goal.

Alison has set goals for the next game she wants to be more aggressive on the field and to be able to communicate to where everyone on the field can hear her.

Jersey number fifteen plays left defense and was really excited to play in the game versus Brenham.

“We are the best soccer family,” sophomore Stephanie Ramirez states,

For the game she believes that Carla was the most valuable player on the field. Her goals are to communicate more and to stay positive. The most exciting part of the game for her was whenever they get close to the opposing teams goal to try and take a shot.

Nominating both Carla and Gracie McAndrew for  most valuable player of the game is freshman Karen Roman. Number eighteen on the team, she plays as a goalie but mostly she plays as a defender. She was very excited to play Brenham and believes her team did pretty good. Her favorite part of the game was when her team scored, and her goal for the next game is to be able to play as a center midfielder.

Both teams fought for the ball, back and forth, the ball traveled up and down the field getting stopped and turned back around, never giving the soccer ball a chance to rest, even on throw in’s it was quick. With so much effort and so little time to try and score a goal, the end result West 1 and Brenham 3.

After watching and cheering JV’s game, it was Varsity’s turn to take on Brenham. One by one the announcer called each varsity players’ name and number. The crowd rose to their feet and placed their hand over their heart as the national anthem began to play throughout the stadium.

The crowd and players cheered for the start of the game. All 22 starting players set off for the field and waited for the referee’s whistle.

“I was very excited,” junior defensive player Alexandra Garcia said.

Both teams sent the ball back and forth, from one side of the field to the other. The first 45 minutes of the game, both teams played hard to try and score a goal on the goalkeeper or even keeping the ball on the opposing side of the field.

Junior Maria Moreno, the goalkeeper, said, “The game started a little slow but [we] fought hard the second half.”

During the second half of the game there was cheering from teammates on the bench and the stands. All the parents who came to watch the game were cheering their daughters on.

“The most exciting part of the game was when Haley scored the goal for the team,” junior forward Emma Roman said.

The game MVP’s for this particular game were sophomore Maria Moreno, senior captain Mikayla Kite, and sophomore Haley Ferguson. The final score after the long 90 minutes was West 1, scored by Ferguson, and Brenham 4.

Roman said, “I thought we fought hard the whole game and I want to let my team know that we are family. I got all my sistas’ with me! We are family!”