Lady Demons beat Liberal 1-0 to open season
By: Shelton Burch
Dodge Globe Sports Editor
For the Dodge City Red Demons girls soccer team, the 2018 soccer season started Tuesday night a lot like last year’s did.
The Red Demons beat the Liberal Redskins 1-0.
The win included a shutout performance by senior Angie Ojeda and a goal by sophomore Alicia Monge, who scored off a rebound from a shot by freshman Alicia Solis with 27:50 left to play in the first half.
“On corner kicks we have routes, and that goal would not have happened if everybody didn’t go where they were supposed to go,” Red Demons head coach Saul Hernandez said.
Everyone did their job on the play, from the player kicking the ball into play to the header that followed to what Hernandez said was a great shot by Solis which eventually led to Monge’s scoring opportunity.
Tuesday’s game was Mon
ge’s first one on varsity she said, and that made it a little emotional for her.
“I was really excited, I felt like crying,” Monge
said. “Just emotional.”
Overall, Hernandez said he was really happy with the team’s performance.
“The effort and the intensity that the girls showed was the best I’ve seen from our girls,” Hernandez said. “They never let down, they were positive the whole time, and that’s one of the key things that we were looking for.”
It was a contested game, with both teams getting shots and occasional scoring opportunities throughout.
“They rode the waves,” Hernandez said. “We’re not gonna control every game, and they stopped (Liberal’s) players when we needed to stop them and the communication was great as well.”
The team hosts Shawnee-Mission South at 7 p.m. Saturday in Memorial Stadium in Dodge City.
Despite the win, the team has some things it will still work to improve.
“Our buildup play, we’re gonna need to work a little bit on that,”Hernandez said. “But defensively, I think we’re sound; In the center-mids we’re getting the idea, we’re not there yet; With the
forwards we need to work on movement. But they did the little things correctly. They showed from the goal that came, everybody did their job on that goal and that’s why we got it.”
