Women’s soccer tied 2-2 at Tuesday’s playoff game with the Sacramento City College Panthers forcing the game into penalty kicks, where the Hawks won 4-3.
The Hawks made the first goal within the first minute of the game through sophomore midfielder Anisa Gonzalez, and their second goal came at the 14-minute mark from sophomore forward Mia Perez.
“We started off great, scoring the first goal kind of hyped us up a bit, and then the second goal kind of kept us going,” Gonzalez said.
The Hawks previously played the Panthers on Oct. 10, winning 2-0, but head coach Cesar Plasencia said that didn’t change how they played their game.
“Our philosophy is we try and be the best we can be,” Plasencia said. “We really don’t take into consideration the opponent that much. We feel like if we play well, we should be okay.”
The Panthers made a comeback at the end of the second half, scoring two goals in the span of three-minutes. Since there needed to be a winner, they went into penalty kicks.
“Maybe it didn’t go our way the second half as they came back 2-2 and it had us going to PKs, but we still kept our heads up and made sure those PKs and that ball got in the back of the net,” Gonzalez said.
Freshman goalkeeper Kathryn Svetich said penalty kicks can be stressful, but was happy that the Hawks won.
“I just tried to be as calm as possible. Goalkeepers are really not expected to save those,” Svetich said. “It kind of takes the pressure off, but it’s still like, ‘I want to do the best to be there for my team.’”
Despite the win, Plasencia said he wasn’t satisfied with how the game went.
“We were poor today,” Plasencia said. “This team is struggling to grow throughout the course of the season. We’ve kind of been stuck since the middle of the season. We haven’t really gotten a lot better, and it’s shown in the results.”
He said the thing the team struggles with the most is taking opportunities at the goal.
“We create enough chances to get three or four goals, and we’re just not very effective,” Plasencia said.
The next game for the Hawks will be played at home against Santa Rosa Junior College on Friday at 3 p.m.