First half dooms Bulldog girls soccer in losses to Jaguars, Nighthawks

By Joe Naiman

A pair of 2-0 first-half deficits led to home losses for Ramona High School’s girls soccer team Jan. 29 against Valley Center and Jan. 31 against Del Norte.

“We’ve just got to be quicker to the start,” said assistant coach Deena Vizcarra. “We need as a team to step it up in the first half.”

The final score in the Jan. 29 game was 2-1 in Valley Center’s favor. Del Norte earned a 2-0 victory over the Bulldogs.

In the match with Valley Center the Bulldogs avoided a shutout loss midway in the second half when Daniela Charbonneau scored Ramona’s only goal.

“It was a nice big wide shot and it landed in the upper right hand corner of the goal right over the keeper,” Vizcarra said.

“Basically in that game, on offense we had several opportunities to score. We were just unable to finish,” said Vizcarra. “We were much stronger as a team in the second half.”

Although Del Norte’s margin of victory was larger, Vizcarra felt that the team performed well against the Nighthawks.

“Played a much better game than we did on Wednesday,” she said.

“Much of the pressure in that game came out from our midfielders. We gave them very little opportunity to score,” said Vizcarra. “The pressure that the midfield kept throughout the game is what kept us in the game.”

Ramona used Teresa Italiano, Sydney Marin, Karli Njaa, Bianca Scodellaro, and Danielle Vizcarra in the midfield against Del Norte.

“They had good steals throughout the game,” Deena Vizcarra said.

The losses to the Jaguars and Nighthawks gave Ramona a 1-3 Valley League record along with a 4-6-2 overall statistic.

Ramona’s match Friday at Mission Vista will begin the second round of league play.