Marble Falls girls soccer loses to Wimberley

CAPTION: Marble Falls junior Suzie Perez battles for the ball while being surrounded by Wimberley. Staff photo by Jennifer Fierro

The Marble Falls High School girls soccer team lost to Wimberley 1-0 Jan. 28 in the District 26-4A opener for both teams.

The Lady Texans (9-1-1, 1-0), who are ranked No. 1 in the state, scored on a ricochet from about 20 yards out with 2 minutes and 11 seconds left in the first half. The ball was placed just under the bar and straight in.

“Can’t do much there,” Lady Mustangs head coach Marisa Miller said. “It was a good shot. It was bobbling around, and she hit it. Sometimes, there’s not much you can do, right? Sometimes they just have a good shot.”

While the outcome didn’t go Marble Falls’ (8-1-2, 0-1) way, Miller saw plenty of positives from her players.

“The absolute grit that they showed,” she said. “They didn’t back down for a single second. They played their hearts out, all 80 minutes. Last year, Wimberly beat us pretty bad.”

The Lady Texans won both matches 5-0 and 8-0.

Miller believes the reason why the Lady Mustangs kept the match closer this year goes back to how they’ve prepared in many ways in the last several months.

“We’ve been talking a lot about our mental game and being mentally tough,” she said. “Our theme this year is to do the hard things. And we knew that this was going to be our hardest, if not our hardest game, and they came out here with the mindset that they were not going to give up, that they were going to compete this year. And they achieved that goal and played amazing.” 

In 10 pre-district matches, Wimberley scored 38 goals for an average of four per contest.

“(Our defense) shut it down,” Miller said. “The goal that was scored was from what? Twenty yards out, and the defense cleared it. It didn’t quite get cleared enough. But then that girl happened to be right there. But I mean defense shut it down the whole game and made a really good job of putting a lot of pressure on their key players. Because they’re really good.” 

The coach indicated the Lady Mustangs did all they could to give themselves a chance at a win.

“I’m really proud of them,” she said. “That’s what we’ve been working on all preseason and even before that. We were talking a lot about our mental game all before even the pre-season. We learned a lot from last year and they’re fired up and ready to go.”

The Lady Mustangs travel to New Braunfels Long Creek Friday, Jan. 30, with the junior varsity playing at 5 p.m. and the varsity at 7 p.m.

CAPTION: Marble Falls senior Dulce Macias looks to weave around the Wimberley defense. Staff photo by Jennifer Fierro