On Wednesday night, February 17th, 2022, the girls varsity soccer team played their first game against Monte Vista High School in the first round of the NCS Division 1 playoff bracket. Granada’s record through league play of 2-8-3 made them the 16th seed, while Monte Vista finished with a record of 11-0-2, giving them the one seed. Granada took down the number one seed with lockdown defense and a late game corner kick goal, beating Monte Vista 1-0.

For the whole first half of the game, both teams were scoreless. Granada had taken very few shots at the goal, whereas Monte Vista had taken at least 20 shots. Late in the game Granada finally scored the one and only goal of the game. After the team set up for a corner kick, Siena Queirolo (sophomore) kicked the ball from the right corner. With a great curve on the ball flying through the air and heading straight for the group of players in front of the goalpost, Jordan Knight (senior) jumped and headed the ball in to score the goal.

“The ball went out to the corner; I ran and grabbed it. I set it up and I tried to get it to the PK spot…it went up and she (Jordan) got a hit on it and then we scored,” Sienna explained.

“Siena has always been very good at locating where people are on the field, and she’s always been very good at taking corners… I think the main goal was trying to get near the middle of the 18-yard box, and I was just there,” said Jordan Knight.

Considering Granada held Monte Vista scoreless the whole game, their defense did an excellent job. After a sloppy first half, Granada had to get better control of the ball to give themselves more chances to score.

“We were getting a lot of pressure from their forwards…We needed to work on getting our mids to help back on defense so we could work the ball forward more,” said defender Katie Canaan.

After a decent first half from Granada, the girls focused on stopping the other team from scoring and communicating on defense. “We were having a hard time possessing the ball. We definitely cleaned it up in the second half,” said sophomore defender Brittany Hahn.

Emma Shingler (senior) was also a big part of the team’s defensive success against Monte Vista. Emma was the defensive player of the game, recording 18 stops. Shingler was an effective communicator throughout the game, contributing to the stellar defensive play from the Mats.

“I see the whole field and my job is to communicate with everyone…Tell them what I see. Communication was very important; it’s like half of the game,” said Shingler.

Head coach Tessi Wagner-Pease said she was excited to get the opportunity to play against Monte Vista again after not being at full strength for their first matchup earlier in the winter season.

“I was happy we were playing Monte Vista actually because we had played them earlier in the season and we did not have our full team all year because of COVID, and we had like 12 players. We were down a lot of players in that game…We got to play them with a more even balance of what our team can do,” said Wagner-Pease.

The team felt like the 2-8-3 regular season record did not tell the full story about their team’s strength. “It never really reflected how good we were as a team. I feel like we deserved a better season,” said Canaan.

The Lady Mats will play in the quarterfinals of NCS against the eighth-seeded Maria Carrillo high school in Santa Rosa this Saturday night.