By Tess Whittet
Executive Sports Editor
Overtime didn’t stop the Mustangs from giving up their goal of defeating Palos Verdes.
Mira Costa’s girls soccer team defeated Palos Verdes 3-2 in overtime on Tuesday at home. Freshman Sierra Sargent led the team with the first two goals of the game, which allowed Costa to advance into overtime.
“I knew that Palos Verdes was going to be tough so we had to play catch up the whole game and the girls had to work overtime to catch up,” head coach Patty Perkinson said.
The Mustangs started out slow, allowing Palos Verdes to attack offensively. However, Costa became more aggressive as the game progressed and shut down Palos Verdes’s attempts to score a goal. Unfortunately, the Sea Kings were able to just slip past the Mustangs and score on a breakaway. Despite having two free kicks near the goal, Costa was unable to score, ending the half down 1-0 to the Sea Kings.
“The first half was a bit rocky,” junior Skye Davis said. “We weren’t making smart decisions or passes. We also weren’t expecting Palos Verdes to come out so [strong], but we got our game together the second half.”
Costa began the second half with a lot of energy, preventing Palos Verdes from forming any offensive attacks. The Mustangs aggressively pushed their way toward the goal, where they were able to cross the ball into the middle and score their first goal of the game. Palos Verdes quickly reacted with a goal of their own, causing Costa to be down again, 2-1. The Mustangs were able to tie the game 2-2 at the end of the second half.
“I thought that second half went well because we had a chance to talk to the girls and tell them that they needed to stick tighter to the other team and not give them any room to shoot because their strategy was through balls the whole time, so we shut them down,” Perkinson said.
Costa went into the first overtime after scoring their second goal. Overtime didn’t last long as Costa senior Kayla Brunick scored the final goal in the first 30 seconds of overtime, ending the game with a Costa win.
“Going into overtime, I was just thinking I need to get my teammates focused and ready to play as hard as we could to win,” Brunick said.
The Mustangs, now 6-0 in Bay League, played on Thursday against Peninsula. The results were not available at the time of publication.
“[We need to improve on] taking each game one game at a time because right now we only have two more league games, and we need to concentrate on each game one at a time,” Perkinson said.
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