Aside from one tie, the Palo Alto girls’ soccer team (8-0-1, 2-0-1) is on a blazing path of victories this season. The Vikings aim to further their hot streak when they face the Santa Clara High School Bruins (5-1-2, 2-0) at 6 p.m. tonight at the Bruins’ homefield.
The Bruins are one of the more skilled teams the Vikings play during the regular season, according to senior defender Lauola Amanoni. To secure a win in the upcoming game, the Vikings have prepared during practice by working on their weaknesses: defense and ball movement.
“Santa Clara is a pretty good team so this game will surely be a competitive one especially since it’s a Santa Clara home game,” Amanoni said. “Since we struggled last game with a couple of defensive style plays, we worked on that. We were able to practice yesterday to fix passes and find more productive ways to get the ball forward.”
After a hard fought loss versus Homestead High School last Thursday, senior forward Tess Preising stresses the importance of practicing the little things.
“We need to make the simple plays,” Preising said. “Last game [versus Homestead] we were sloppy with our possessions and were constantly dribbling into trouble. If we make the simple passes and plays, we would be in a better position to score.”
The Vikings are also conscious of their undefeated streak, and hope to extend the clean record, according to Preising.
“I am looking forward to keeping our undefeated streak and obviously scoring a lot of goals this game, but scoring them creatively,” Preising said. “Maybe by implementing the plays we’ve been working on in practice or getting some off a good counter attack.”
Amanoni expressed a mild concern for the game against Santa Clara regarding its under groomed soccer field.
“Santa Clara has poor playing field conditions that over the years made it difficult to get good results,” Amanoni said. “Playing every team, we notice that we can never look at a game as an easy win; it ends up making us always play our worst. However, Santa Clara will for sure be a good match.”
Preising revealed a similar view on preparing for the game.
“I think this game will be neither easy nor hard, since we’ve done well against Santa Clara before but I don’t think we should have any expectations of what the game could be like,” Preising said. “It’s a new year and they (Bruins) have new players, we have new players, so it really all comes down to whether we will show a good performance on the field or not today.”