RANGELY | Spring sports are here, which means athletes are practicing in the sun, wind, rain and snow. The lady Panthers soccer team has a number of girls who have come out to play this year which means Rangely High School will have a varsity and a JV team. The team this year consists of six seniors, 11 juniors, four sophomores and two freshmen. Eight of them, from seniors to freshmen, have never played soccer before.
“We are very excited to see the skill that all the players are displaying and their knowledge of the game as they practice, along with playing in games,” said head coach Patsy Wanstedt.
This past week the girls started their season on Tuesday, March 27 in Vail.
“Playing at that altitude proved to make an impact on our game along with the nerves of being on a turf field for most of the girls. Even though we did not come up with the win, the girls played hard and held Vail Mountain to one goal in the second half,” Wanstedt said.
Senior Klaire Denny had three shots on Vail’s goal, senior Grace Kenney had one, junior Kassidee Brown with one and junior Aspen Rhea had two shots.
Thursday, March 29, they played their first home game against Moffat County. Varsity played first with a number of shots on goal by senior Elizabeth McCann with two, junior Skylar Thacker with one, junior Aspen Rhea had four and senior Klaire Denny had three shots with one of them going in for a goal. Junior goalie KK Fortunato had 16 saves.
“Even though we played hard, along with shots on goal, we came up short with the win,” Wanstedt said.
The JV team played next and came out ready to play.
“We had a number of players who had shots on goal which made it an exciting game,” said Wanstedt. “We had nine different players with shots on goal.”
Andrea Knight had three, Grace Kenney with one, Marlena Miller had two with one assist, Aspen Rhea with five, Maria Blakely had one, Megan Ward with three, Jayde Trumbley had eight shots with one goal, Elizabeth McCann had one goal, and Caeleigh Donovan had six shots with two of them going in for goals. Freshman Kacie Lapp is goalie with 10 saves on goal, only allowing two to slip in. As a team, they had 26 shots on goal with four of them going in for the win against Moffat County.
“Our JV team played hard and came up with the win against the Moffat County Bulldogs 4-2.”
The team traveled to Aspen Tuesday, April 3 and play Basalt at home Friday before traveling to Vail to take on Vail Christian.
