Going into their charity game against the 6A defending state champions, the Blue Valley West Jaguars, BVNW girls varsity soccer head coach Michelle Pothoven said the team had two main goals coming into the game.

“We had two goals: we didn’t want to get beat up the middle and we wanted to stay compact,” Pothoven said. “We did both of those things [and] we did them very well.”

Despite accomplishing these goals, the Huskies were unable to come out on top. However, they were able to keep the Jaguars scoreless throughout the first half. 

According to Pothoven, the Huskies were able to do this by defending well and as a unit. 

“The conversation at halftime was that we needed to keep doing what we were doing and that we had defended well,” Pothoven said. “We had to be proud of the defense and not frustrated by our lack of offense.”

However, with 34:02 remaining in the second half, the Jaguars scored off of a corner kick, making the score 1-0, which would not change for the remainder of the game.

Even though the Huskies ended up falling to the Jaguars, Pothoven said she was proud of how the team played. 

“The game didn’t end how we wanted it to, but the things we’ve been focusing on and working on these last couple days at practice we did tonight,” Pothoven said. 

Similarly, junior defender Emily Peterson said although the team lost, they did a good job fighting their way through the game. 

“We put in a lot of effort as a team,” Peterson said. “We worked really well defensively together to stay compact and not get shot on.”

Additionally, Pothoven believes that this game moved the team in the right direction, saying how defense wins championships.

“For the last couple weeks, we’ve been focusing on defense and figuring out the formation that we want to have defensively,” Pothoven said. “I think we’ve done that. Our defense has just been absolute bulldogs and they’ve been working hard and the offense will come.”

Despite losing the game, the team was able to raise almost $500 to donate to the Global Orphan Project in order to provide school uniforms for children in Haiti to allow them to go to school. 

“Education is such a given here,” Pothoven said. “Sometimes we forget that it’s not [a given] everywhere.”

Although the team wanted to defeat the Jaguars, Pothoven said that giving back to help children in Haiti receive an education is more important.

“The big thing is that we want to remind ourselves that soccer is important, but there are bigger things in the world that we can help with,” Pothoven said. 

In regards to preparing for next Tuesday’s game, Peterson said it is important for the team to rest their bodies and use this loss as motivation for their next game. 

“We’ve played a lot of games in the past two weeks,” Peterson said. “I think [we need to] prepare ourselves and then mentally use the energy from the anger of losing to go to the next game.”

As the season progresses, Peterson said the team’s mentality is promising looking forward.

“So far this season we’ve had a really good mentality just to stick together,” Peterson said. “If we work together, we have a really good chance of going far.”

The girls varsity soccer team will play again on April 11, in a match-up against Spring Hill at 6:30 p.m, at Spring Hill High School.