The Ripon girls soccer team played Kimball High School on Friday December 12th in Tracy. Although they didn’t win, the girls tried their hardest.

“I feel like we fought hard, as we never gave up and continued to fight,” said Sophomore varsity player Aubree Pelon.  The final score was 1 to 4.

For a varsity team, the group has a lot of inexperienced players. Although they are inexperienced, they are still helping the team. “We have 6 freshmen this year that we have pulled up who are helping us tremendously,” says Pelon.

“ I think that the first half the team played fantastic,” said varsity coach Nicole Meyer. “They played their game, they didn’t give up, and that’s why we scored a goal in the last two minutes”.

Meyer thinks that part of the reason the team didn’t do so well in the second half was because of the cold weather.

“The second half we didn’t adjust well to the cold and we lost our focus a little bit”.

The team lost but still felt that they stay unified and persevered through the game.

“The team had very little mistakes and played very well as a team,” said freshman Ashley Pugh. 

Meyer’s was not disappointed in the way that her team played, especially in the first half, even though they lost.

“The first half the way that we played as a unit was really really impressive. At one point I saw the other coach adjusting his lineup to how we played because I don’t think he was expecting a small school to be so well rehearsed and so strong,” Meyer said.

There were moments in the second half that she was proud of also, “One thing that stood out was how hard Cindy Alvarez worked up top through the second half. She would take 2 to 3 players on at a time and be strong on the ball and man up to them.”

There were also things that the team struggled with during this game, “We just couldn’t capitalize on shooting and finish through.” said Pelon She said that even with those issues, they never stopped working hard.

“I love these girls so much,” said Pelon “We are truly a second family.”