Dons End Regular Season and Senior Night on High Note

The Dons finished up their regular season in impressive fashion against Berean Christian Thursday night. The evening included pre-game festivities to honor our seven amazing seniors, Elise Flagg, Ella Johnston, Kat Montoya, Lauren Yee, Natalie Cohen, Natalie Means, and Sammy Hess, before they played the final regular season game of their high school soccer careers. Spirits were high as senior Natalie Cohen, who has been injured since last season, took the field as part of the starting line up and was able to participate in the kick off. From there the Dons wasted no time in scoring the first goal of the night: senior Natalie Means scored within the first minute of the game. Means scored her second goal of the night, unassisted, 10 minutes later. 

The Dons went into halftime with a 2-0 lead, but they weren’t done adding points to the scoreboard. Means scored her third goal of the night, this time assisted by fellow senior Elise Flagg, two minutes into the second half. To cap off her memorable night, Means scored her fourth goal of the game five minutes later off of a corner kick from junior Tatum Zuber, with fellow senior Lauren Yee adding a nice fake on the designed play. That goal brought Means’ total on the season to 24 goals which broke the previous Acalanes school record which had been 21 goals in a single season.

The Dons scored again when sophomore Ella Thomason passed the ball to freshman Alex Salazar who scored a hard shot that went through the Eagle keeper’s hands. The final goal of the game was put in the back of the net by junior Sophi MacKay, from a beautiful dribble and cross by freshman Taylor Mikalis. The Dons’ stellar defense shined in yet another shutout, with the 6-0 final score.

After the game Coach Nick Barbarino highlighted the play of all of the seniors. With this final regular season win, the Dons are officially the DAL Valley champions and this was the best regular season finish in school history for Girls Soccer with a 17-1 record.

The Dons are looking forward to finding out who their first opponent of NCS will be next week, with the Dons playing either on Tuesday or Wednesday. Go Dons!