Girls Soccer Place 3rd in OIA, Head to States

The RamPage, Staff

Radford High School’s girls varsity soccer team is going to states, after clinching third place in the Oahu Interscholastic Association.

Team Captains Skyler Bartness, Jessica Write, and Fallon Villarreal led the team to a season record of 4-8, with one tie.

The team will play in the state championships that will run from Feb. 1-4.

“Training for states will be very similar to how we trained for the rest of the season. We will work on our skills, practice making different runs, and set goals for ourselves for the remainder of the season,” Villarreal said.

“Our team has worked so hard to develop our skills and learn how to play together,” Villarreal said. “We truly earned our spot in states.”

Like any sport, the team experienced their share of challenges.

“Our biggest challenge would have to be keeping our spirits up during our tough games. There were some games that the score was not in our favor and we got frustrated and upset,” she said.

Soccer player Kortni Baughman (11) said the team worked to keep their heads up and not get frustrated.

“We tend to get upset easily if things don’t go our way,” Baughman said. “We need to keep our cool and stay focused when things get hard.”

Villarreal said the team turned the challenges into motivation.

 “As a team and throughout the season we were able to learn how to take the emotions from those games and use them as motivation for the rest of our season,” Villarreal said.

Despite the challenges, it was a collective effort from Varsity Coaches Sheri Uyematsu, Sam Tateyama and Peyton Otani that motivated the team. The support didn’t stop there.  Junior Varsity Coaches Nestle Yamaguchi and Ryan Uyematsu also encouraged the girls.

“Our entire coaching staff has worked extremely hard to help us improve both our skills and our attitudes this season. They taught us to have a positive perspective and set goals as a team and personally,” Villareal said. “At the start of each game we create a goal as a team and regardless of the final score what our coaches focused on was if we accomplished our goal or not. This coaching style has really helped our team go into games with better mindsets and that has been reflected in outcomes of the games, including the games we lost.”