The UHS Girls’ Varsity Soccer team has made history and cemented themselves as a record-breaking team, not only going undefeated in league but making their first semifinal playoff appearance in over a decade.
“We knew we had to fix something coming into league, so we all sat down and talked for over an hour, and after that, something in us just clicked and we weren’t the same team we had been prior,” junior Carmen Cruz said.
Something did change as they ended the league going 5-0-1 and claiming the championship title after victories against Irvine (2-0) and Sage Hill (4-0). In the Irvine game, juniors Jade Fiumano and Krista Mendevil scored; in the Sage Hill game, goals were scored by junior Relle Remmer, senior Leili Farboud, sophomore Brianna Liu and senior Rama Abdellatif.
In the Jan. 30 game against Irvine, goalie and senior Jesse Niedwick notched the shut-out; in the Feb. 1 game, Niedwick and senior Neva Coskun split time in the nets for the shut-out win over Sage Hill.
“By the time CIF came we had all gotten so much closer and felt like a family,” senior Riley Hertstein said. “We were ready to give it everything we had for each other and go to war together.”
In the first round of playoffs, the girls played Western Christian High School and defeated them for their third shutout in a row with a score of 1-0. Just a few minutes into the second half, Liu scored the only goal of the game while the Trojan defense and goalie Niedwick held the fort all night long.
The Trojans moved on to the second round playing not far from home against Crean Lutheran.
The Trojans struck first scoring within the first five minutes of the game with Liu’s goal from outside the box. In the second half, Fiumano scored off a corner to put the Trojans up 2-0. The Trojan defense once again played lights out.
The journey did not end there, as UHS faced Chaminade in the following match. The game was neck and neck the entire time. Both teams’ defenses were phenomenal with regulation time ending in a 0-0 draw. With about three minutes left into the first overtime period, the Trojans were able to capitalize on a penalty by freshman Sophia Costa. Fiumano scored the winning penalty kick and advanced the Trojans to the semifinals. Fiumano’s goal tied the record for most goals scored in a season; a record that she would soon break.
“It was such a surreal feeling seeing all my teammates run to me and hearing the stadium erupt and cheer after my goal,” Fiumano said. “The game was so close the whole time but we kept fighting, and we knew it was going to come down to one big play.”
The Trojans’ five-game consecutive shutout wins came to an unfortunate end when they faced Oak Park in the semi-finals. The girls struck first when Fiumano spun a defender and scored only minutes into the game. With that goal, Fiumano secured the UHS Girls’ Varsity Soccer record for most goals in a season with 14. Oak Park tied it up 1-1 at the 25-minute mark and the teams went into half-time tied. The second half was full of defensive plays and resulted in regular time ending at 1-1.
“Jade [Fiumano] and Sophia [Costa] both suffered injuries that took them out of the remainder of the game and I feel like that really killed our morale,” Herstein said. “We had been really good at staying healthy but when two key attacking players both got injured in such a short amount of time we started getting in our own head.”
The game continued to double overtime until Oak Park managed to slip one past the UHS defenders, thus ending the game with a final score of 2-1.
Nevertheless, the Trojans ended the season as the Pacific Hills League Champions and finished with an impressive CIF-SS playoff run making history for the program.
