San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Gonzalez, Matthews lead Raiders to win
Taft, the reigning District 29-6A girls soccer champion, had a slow start to its season. The Raiders only scored two goals in their first two games.
“We played two quality teams to start with Brennan and O’Connor,” Taft coach Scott Davis said. “Both of them played very defensive against us to some degree. I think we’ve kind of steadied the ship a little bit. We’ve kind of made up our minds that we’ve got to match other teams’ intensity and energy from the start of these games, and we haven’t always done that.”
Taft brought the energy on Friday, led by a hat trick from junior forward Julissa Gonzalez to carry the Raiders to a 7-1 victory over Jay at Northside Soccer Field.
“I feel like we came out sharp and ready to play,” Gonzalez said. “We came out with intensity, the whole team really. I scored the first goal and I think that really got us off to a good start.”
Entering Friday’s matchup, Taft (9-0-3, 5-0-2) was riding on a four-game win streak and had outscored opponents 23-3 in that span. It was more of the same against Jay (10-4-2, 3-2-2).
The high-flying Raiders offense wasted no time finding the net, scoring three goals in the game’s first seven minutes.
“It was what I wanted to see — us coming out hard from the start,” Davis said. “We’ve been struggling a little bit with that, playing with 100% effort all the time, specifically at the start of games. I was really pleased to see us come out and jump on them early.”
A little over a minute into the game, Layla Rangel took off for the goal with a couple of Jay defenders on her hip. The senior forward sent a lateral pass to Gonzalez, who had a clear shot for the 1-0 lead.
Senior midfielder Jordan Matthews led another chase towards the goal in the fifth minute before getting tackled by multiple Mustang defenders in the goalkeeper’s box. Awarded a free kick, Matthews sent the ball past the goalie for a 2-0 lead and adding
to her district-leading goals on the season.
The free kick was also Matthews’ 100th career goal.
“I feel really excited and happy to get that accomplishment because not many people have done that so far,” Matthews said of the achievement.
Gonzalez wove her way past several Jay defenders before cashing in her second goal in the seventh minute. Sophomore left
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wing Jessiny Aguillon got in on the scoring action with goals in the 17th and 19th minute before Rangel scored the team’s final first-period goal in the 20th minute.
Gonzales completed her hat trick and scored the team’s final goal in the fifth minute of the second half. Jay senior forward Anabella Rodriguez, who is second in the district in goals (20), tallied the Mustangs’ lone goal with four minutes left in the match.
“Jay’s a quality team, they got really strong players and we came into this game treating them as a threat,” Davis said. “And knowing that they were, we really wanted to come out and play from the start and try to avoid those lulls that we’ve been having at the start of games.”
Aside from Friday’s hot start, the key to the electric Raiders offense has been their continuity.
The Raiders brought back their top three goal scorers in Matthews, Rangel and Gonzalez, whose experience playing together has made them even more of a scoring threat.
“I feel like it’s definitely helpful,” Gonzalez said. “Us three, Me Layla and Jordan, working my whole career of high school since my freshman year and I think it just really our chemistry helps build the attack going forward.”
Jay looks to bounce back next week as it faces Brennan at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Northside Field 1, while Taft faces Harlan at 5 p.m. Wednesday at Farris Soccer Stadium.