Lady Wolves are "controlling their own destiny"

With three more wins added to their record, the Lady Wolves are headed toward their goal of competing at State. 

Over the weekend, the Green River High School Girls Soccer team faced off with the same teams they played the weekend before, only this time they got to play on their own turf.

"We definitely played a lot better in both games than we did on the previous weekend," Head Coach Matthew Robles said. 

On Friday, Green River hosted a game against the Lyman Lady Eagles. While the coaches expected the Lady Wolves to do better at home, they were excited to see how well the team was able to move the ball around and keep their opponents chasing to keep up, especially within the first half hour of the game. 

"As a coaching staff, that really was impressive to us, because it's things we've been talking about and really going over consistently, and for them to actually put it in practice was great to see," Robles explained. 

Even with the team playing strong, there was still a moment when Lyman was able to push past their defense. Karly Sabey, who scored a hat trick against the Lady Wolves when they played in Lyman, managed to get a decent shot in and score a point for the Lady Eagles. 

"It was a little frustrating for us, because we were playing well," Coach Robles admitted. "But we know that in high school soccer you're going to have those moments of defensive lapses, and it's just how we respond to those, and we responded pretty well."

The Lady Wolves' response was to keep Lyman from scoring any more points, and to ultimately score six of their own. Isabel Vasco scored five of the team's goals, and assisted the sixth, which was scored by Thea Johnson for her first goal in regulation. The Lady Wolves ended up beating Lyman 6-1. 

On Saturday, Green River hosted Mountain View, and once again lived up to their expectation of being able to play better on their own field. Coach Robles noted that the Lady Wolves scored the same number of points against both Lyman and Mountain View at home as they had on the road, but they did better at keeping their opponents from scoring. 

"Offensively we stayed pretty consistent where we wanted to be," Robles said. "We just cleaned a lot of things up defensively."

Once again, the opposing team was able to score one goal. With a small mental break in Green River's defense late in the game, Mountain View was able to capitalize on their opportunity to reach the goal. Once again, however, the Lady Wolves managed to limit their opponent's chances to score and "made life difficult for their forwards going into our defending half," according to Robles. Green River beat Mountain View with a final score of 7-1. 

Continuing the "running theme" of the season, Coach Robles noted, Vasco scored all seven goals in the game. 

"In two weeks, in four games against the Valley schools, she scored 24 goals," Robles noted. "She's just an amazing talent. We are extremely lucky to have her."

With the two wins from the weekend, the Lady Wolves only needed one more win to lock up the four seed for the State tournament. While it was hard-won, they got that win when they took on Lander at home on Tuesday. 

Having been beaten by Lander earlier in the season, the team knew the game would be close. Things were looking rough at the start, as Green River wasn't moving the ball as well as they can, according to Robles, and they went down 2-0 early on. However, the Lady Wolves fought back to take the lead 3-2. With only about 10 minutes left in the game and being down one player, Green River gave up another goal, ending things with a 3-3 tie. The game went into a shootout, which the Lady Wolves won 4-3. After the back-and-forth competition, Green River came away with a 4-3 victory. 

Once again, Vasco scored all the goals for the Lady Wolves, giving her a season total of 50 goals. The sophomore player has now broken the school's career goal scoring record with a total of 88 goals and counting. Coach Robles is excited to see how far she will go, and impressed that even though she knows she's a target for other teams, she still contributes every week and her work rate only continues to go up. 

During the game against Lander, the Lady Wolves also celebrated Senior Night and recognized their two senior players, Kristen Simco and Alex Soto.

As a whole, the team is in good standing as these wins have put them "in the driver's seat for controlling our own destiny," according to Robles. As they prepare for their last few conference games on the road, starting with Pinedale this Friday, they will take nothing for granted, but can still go forward with confidence. 

"We know we just need to take it one game at a time," Robles said. "We're where we wanted to be at this time of the year."