The Wolverines girls soccer team got their first win of the season on Thursday with a dominant 7-1 victory.
Soon, Bayfield girls soccer will have to look to players other than decorated senior Sydney Rey to put the ball in opponents’ nets. Thursday afternoon, Mia Sager felt what it might be like to fill such cleats.
After Rey, operating at a more conservative speed as a precaution against injury, rang a shot off Del Norte goalkeeper Sophia Banderas’ near post, Sager was somewhat shocked to see the rebound coming her way at the far post as she trailed the play. Composing herself just long enough, she knocked the ball in, growing the Wolverines’ early lead to 3-0 in the 14th minute and recording her first varsity goal.
Sager’s second strike may have been the most important, other than Rey’s eighth-minute icebreaker (assisted by Sager). Paced by sophomore Emma Parra, the visiting Tigers – seeking so much as a goal after being outscored 30-0 in their previous three outings – applied steady heat for a good 15 minutes as the first half wound down and the second commenced. After Parra, who’d not missed a 31st-minute goal by much, shot over BHS goalie Lily Muir’s far post in the 45th, Sager answered in the 52nd with BHS’ fourth goal.
“She came on really strong at the end of last year and we had some pretty high expectations for her,” said interim head coach Eddie Bailey. “It’s been fun to watch the girls grow; I think all the work they’ve been putting in is starting to pay off … more and more as a team.”
The team couldn’t wait to blast through the failing floodgates; sophomore Jacqueline Boyce converted a 53rd-minute rebound, and after senior Kambrie Byrd led a 55th-minute rush deep into Del Norte’s 18, Rey profited from that pressure and netted the home side’s sixth.
“Everybody kind of knows about Sydney,” Bailey said. “But Mia and Kam both stepped up big. And kind of an ‘unsung hero’ was Hailey Robinette; she played really well on the wing out there, got a lot of opportunities and had a lot of good crosses.”
Byrd then marked in the 59th, swelling the lead to 7-0, but the Tigers avoided being shut out when sophomore Tessa Vita went left around a BHS defender and found herself able to shoot near-post in the 63rd past a drawn-out Muir.
Still, on a day where the program may have taken an unexpected ‘L,’ the Wolverines (1-8-0 overall, 0-4-0 3A Intermountain) logging a long-sought ‘W’ was something about which Bailey beamed.
“That’s huge,” he said. “I think it was the epitome of a team effort and fun to be a part of; everybody’s just starting to get in the groove, fill their spots, feel that confidence and build comfortable relationships with teammates.”
Bayfield’s brutal week, closing out regular season play, was to begin with a trip Saturday to Alamosa for an 11 a.m. start against the unbeaten Mean Moose (9-0-2, 4-0-1), coming off a 10-0 rout of DNHS on Tuesday. Results were unavailable at press time.
