Skyline College’s Women’s Soccer team held their own while losing to West Valley College 2-1 on Friday, Sept. 7, 2016.

Both teams handled the ball well but West Valley was the more aggressive team in the match.

Dahlia Rodriguez, assisted by Yasmine Sahib, scored the first goal within the first five minutes of the match.

“I thought it was a great game. The score tells you it was a good game,” Coach Kevin Corsiglia said. “We did a lot of good things today”.

Although it wasn’t a high scoring game, both teams exhibited good defense in what was a back and forth matchup. West Valley tied the game right before the first half ended.

“We’re doing a lot better and we’re still improving,” Genevieve McVanner Rogers said after the game. “We need to connect more. Individually, we’re really good players but we need to work on connecting when we come together”.

The team came back swinging in the second half as they started to match West Valley’s aggression on the field. But the game came to a bitter end when West Valley scored again.

Despite the loss, the team’s coach was optimistic about the remainder of the season.

“We’re trying to find our identity as a team,” Corsiglia said. “We’re still working on it. There are times where we’re a dangerous looking team and if we can pull apart those moments and repeat them over and over again, we’ll be really successful.”

When asking what the team could do better next time to secure a win, Shelby Decker stressed the fact that the team needs to attend their practices regularly.

“We need to come to practice…Plain and simple,” Decker said. “A lot of us didn’t make it to practice today so a lot of the girls came out not ready to play.”

Coach Corsiglia wasn’t deterred by the loss and continues to be committed to train the players. “I’m here to develop players so our adversity is me trying to develop a group of players to play the way we want them to play,” Corsiglia said.