In the preseason finale for Valencia girls’ soccer, the Vikings were defeated at home by the Quartz Hill Royals 3-1, with senior Sasha Vera scoring the lone goal off a long kick 30 yards out.
“We’ve been working on some different things that we tried to work on tonight. Some of them worked well, some of them not so well,” Valencia head coach Brian Miller said. “So, we’re learning all the time. I’m learning, the girls are learning, and I think sometimes when you do lose a game, you learn a little bit more than when you win sometimes.”
For the Vikings, the game didn’t start the way they wanted in Monday’s defeat as Valencia played two different styles in the first and second halves.
In the first half, the Royals scored two goals in the final 25 minutes following a defensive back-and-forth sequence to begin the game.
Following the 2-0 deficit, Miller changed the formation to push back against Quartz Hill and, despite allowing another goal, he believed there was improvement.
“We changed the formation in the second half, so that helped us a little bit,” he said. “We had a couple of injuries, as well. We had had a penalty that was never a penalty to go against us. And I think the girls get their heads down. If it’s a penalty, it’s a penalty and they play on. But, you know, it’ssomething we’ve got to work on. It’s all part of the game.”
At the midway point of the second half, Vera was awarded a free kick and took the shot toward the goal, which was saved by the Quartz Hill goalkeeper.
But within the next two minutes, Vera took the shot again in open play and kicked it into the corner of the net and scored a much-needed goal for Valencia.
“She got a bounce and just whacked it in. And yeah, it was really a nice shot,” Miller said.
But Vera’s goal was all that the Vikings were able to produce on offense as the Royals closed the game out and secured defeat for Valencia.
With Foothill League play set to begin Thursday, Miller added the preseason match against Quartz Hill provided needed aspects of the game along with scrimmages earlier in the month against Paraclete and Crescenta Valley.
“We look at every game. We look at things that went well, and we look at things that didn’t go so well,” he said. “It’s exciting times to start a season. There’s a lot of good things that I’ve seen and there’s a lot of things that we can still work on. But I thought the effort today was tremendous, and I’ve got a great bunch of players out there, so I’m really excited about this season.”
The Vikings open Foothill League play on the road Thursday against Hart with kickoff scheduled for 5 p.m.
