Girls’ soccer clinches conference title
Team prepares for Section game against Hopkins
October 10, 2016
After beating Benilde-St. Margaret’s, the other contender for the Metro West Conference title, the girls’ varsity soccer team claimed conference champs Oct. 6, according to assistant coach Brad Brubaker.
According Brubaker, the team had been anticipating and preparing for the game after a series of big wins.
“Once we beat Chanhassen and Chanhassen had beaten Benilde, everybody had the Benilde game on their calendar,” Brubaker said. “The girls knew going in they wanted to win.”
Junior girls’ soccer captain Rafferty Kugler said she feels pleased with her teammates effort.
“I am overall proud of how our team played. I’m excited that we did win,” Kugler said. “We worked so hard during the season to get to this point.”
Brubaker said the momentum from the girls’ win streak helped them stay positive throughout the whole Conference game.
“(The girls) have stayed tough and now we’re on a nine game streak without a loss. I think they really just kept believing,” Brubaker said. “They knew that being in good games with (teams from the same Section) was a positive thing.”
Kugler said the team struggled at the beginning of the season but worked hard to win nine games in a row.
“We started out really rough, but we’ve been working hard this whole season and so far we’ve gotten most of the results we needed,” Kugler said.
Brubaker said he partly attributes the win to the amount of time the girls spent practicing and studying.
“Just because you want to win doesn’t mean you do win. We definitely went into it with an attitude of ‘we’re going to work hard, keep working and beat this team,’” Brubaker said.
According to Brubaker, the experienced seniors on the team have played a large role in the success of the team this season.
“Five of the (seniors) on varsity were on varsity as freshmen, so we’ve got five girls that are four year varsity players and I think that seniority, that leadership, that they’ve seen a lot of varsity soccer I think really has been a stabilizing force,” Brubaker said.
Sophomore Rachel Young said the team’s matchup against Hopkins may be tough, but she has no doubt they will come out with a victory.
“It’s going to be a very competitive game and I think we have the ability to come out on top.”
Brubaker said despite tying with Hopkins in their last matchup, he believes Park has the ability to win this time around in the Section game.
The team plays Hopkins in their first Section game at 7 p.m. Oct. 13 at Hopkins High School.
